Human settlements

Articles

Beautiful Resistance

For those who’ve never visited a Palestinian refugee camp, these are not dense tent or tin shacks encampments. They’re more like barrios; densely packed, tightly knit, fully functioning communities. On a very recent trip, the GPM visited one of Palestine’s largest refugee camps – Aida – in the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem.


Genocide by Home Demolition

In the seven months since Hamas’ daring incursion into southern Israel, the Israeli military has demolished over 300,000 Gazan homes — almost three-quarters of Gaza’s housing stock — killing an estimated 35,000, most of them women and children. Countless thousands of Gazans remain buried under the rubble of their humble homes. Armed with US bombs and missiles, Israel demolishes Palestinian homes in an instant. Palestinian suffering and trauma will endure for generations. What’s its aim? Ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the consolidation of the settler-colonial regime it established in 1948, says Israeli author and activist Jeff Halper. Halper is a founding member of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. He’s also the author of a host of books, including An Israeli in Palestine (2010), War Against the People (2015), and Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism and the Case for One Democratic State (2021).


To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Sleeping and dreaming — essential and mysterious. An old Tanzanian friend speaks about torrential rains and village celebrations. And, in the Dutch city of Delft, a big university digs deep for the heat beneath: geothermal energy.


Bosses Old & New

In West Africa, French colonialism officially ended in the 1960s. Six decades later, neocolonialism lives on. These days, America is the world’s preeminent imperial power and NATO its most powerful tool. In Cambodia, French colonists are long gone. Military chiefs and their rich clients rule the roost, much to the detriment of biodiverse ecosystems.




Israelis in Solidarity With Gaza

As Covid-19 sweeps across the planet, few scenarios are as frightening as an outbreak of the virus in Israeli-occupied Gaza. Four Israelis are refusing to let this happen, and are helping Gazans fend it off. They’ve launched a solidarity campaign to help Gazans out in this most grave crisis — and are calling for an end to Israel’s siege.


Covid-19 in Palestine: An Update

Hungry for news on the state of the Covid-19 pandemic in Israeli-occupied/colonized Palestine, I reached out by Skype to Rania Muhareb, a researcher with Ramallah-based Al-Haq, one of Palestine’s most prominent and respected human rights organizations. Rania spoke with me from her home in East Jerusalem.


Covid-19 in Gaza

As the Covid-19 pandemic sweeps around the planet, attention has been focused on the fate of the most vulnerable communities: those consigned to crowded urban slums, refugee camps and conflict zones across the Global South. No one more vulnerable to the highly infectious virus than the people of Gaza, under comprehensive Israeli blockade and siege for thirteen years.


Trump’s Big “Deal”

Late last January, after over a year of teasing talk and suggestive leaks, US President Donald Trump finally announced his so-called “Deal of the Century,” ostensibly aimed at resolving what is commonly referred to as the Israel-Palestine “conflict.”Predictably, Trump’s deal has been widely referred to in the mainstream media as a “peace plan.” Nothing could be further from the truth.


Talking Palestine-Israel

A roof over one’s head. A home. Other than food and water, nothing is more essential to human life and health. Conversely, save forced starvation, there’s no better way to eliminate a people than to reduce their homes to rubble. No one knows this better, or carried out the practice more ruthlessly and efficiently, than the State of Israel.


Talking Palestine-Israel

Interviews that go sideways, or south. They tend to end suddenly, in response to the question that shouldn’t have been asked. Such was the case in this conversation with Ha’aretz columnist Amira Hass, in response to a question Amira didn’t let me finish, about the international community’s declared, though deceitful support for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. Thankfully, our conversation continued. Very lively.


Kufr Qaddum

Kufr Qaddum is a village of 5000, halfway between the northern West Bank cities of Nablus and Qalqilya. Its agricultural lands encompass about 19,000 dunams (acres), 11,000 of which fall within Oslo ‘Area C’ and are therefore under complete Israeli military control. I travelled to to Kufr Qaddum to observe one of their weekly protests, against the closure of their ancient road.





A Tree Grows in Palestine

Tourists come to Al-Walaja from around the world to enjoy the lovely surrounding landscape. A huge olive tree, reputedly over 5000 years-old, is a big draw. For political tourists, Israel’s imposing “security barrier,” soon to enclose little Al-Walaja in a cage, is a must-see.


Silwan

As Donald Trump ponders whether or not to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem – endorsing Israel’s claim to the city as its “eternal, undivided capital” – Israel moves heaven and earth to cleanse East Jerusalem of its Palestinian residents.




Seven Days in Hebron

I took off for Hebron on a Sunday morning. Throngs of Israeli soldiers filled the bus station, soldiers on the move, barely more than teenagers, large backpacks and automatic weapons flung over their shoulders, smart phones in their hands.









City of Peace & Traffic Jams

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/DarEsSalaam.mp3

Dar es Salaam … City of Peace on Tanzania’s Indian Ocean coast. Driving a car into, out of or around the city, or commuting in one of the Tanzanian capital’s jam-packed dala-dalas, is anything but a peaceful enterprise.


Dharavi

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/www.greenplanetmonitor.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dharavi.mp3

Mumbai is the world’s third most populous city. This little neck of land dangling in the Arabian Sea is a Mecca for India’s corporate giants. But almost half of Mumbai’s eighteen million residents are poor and real estate moguls are squeezing them out.


Garbage in Paradise

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/www.greenplanetmonitor.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/majuro-garbage.mp3

It’s easy to forget – living in the middle of a continent – that there are limits to the amount of dross we can toss. But when you’re living on an island, in the middle of the ocean, trash can get in your face


Hebron Settlers

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/HebronSettlers.MP3

Jewish settlers in the Palestinian city of Hebron wear skull caps and carry Glock pistols. They have forcibly expanded their settlements, closed Palestinian shops, and expelled residents.


Bumbire Island – Part 4

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/Bumbire_Josie.mp3

In this final chapter in our series, Christine Hamilton and I head off to a fishing settlement called Lushonga, in search of a woman named Josie, who suffers from an advanced case of AIDS.



Bumbire Island – Part 2

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropbox.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/Bumbire_Christine.mp3

Bumbire Island sits on the northern tip of a sliver of an archipelago in southwest Lake Victoria, in Tanzania, East Africa. Nature on and around Bumbire is gorgeous—but the hardscrabble fishing camps scattered along its shores—and those of nearby rocky islets—are a different story.




Housing Rights For Women

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/Women.mp3

During South Africa’s Apartheid years, black families were routinely evicted from their land. Women and girls fared the worst. Sixteen years after the collapse of Apartheid, life in South Africa is as difficult as it’s ever been for women.


Palestinian Rappers

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/PalestinianRappers.mp3

Palestinian rap is only about a decade old, but it has spread throughout Israel, Palestine, and now to Lebanon. The rappers look to Tupac Shakur and the socially conscious rappers, and reject the gangsta image so popular in the west.


Water in Tanzania

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/WaterTanzania.mp3

Water is one of Tanzania’s scarcest commodities. In the capital city of Dar es Salaam, about sixty percent of households don’t enjoy a reliable supply. The surest bet is a twenty-liter bucket of precious water for one dollar.


Fringe Education

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/Intercultural.mp3

Poor farmers have always set off to the nearest big city in search of income. Opportunities are often a dream, and obstacles abound. Many forsake their most valuable asset – their own traditions.



Bolivians With Disabilities

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/Disabilities.mp3

The development of rights for disabled people in industrialized countries is an encouraging trend – a sign of inclusiveness in this age of division and disparity. Imagine what it’s like to be a disabled person in a country like … Bolivia.


Sustainable Transit in Dar es Salaam

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/LetterFromTanzania.mp3

In the Tanzanian capital of Dar Es Salaam, a metropolis known for its astonishing traffic jams, urban planners are working on a new mass transit system that will hopefully make everyone’s lives and workday much more peaceful.


Farming in Palestine

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/www.greenplanetmonitor.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/palestinian_farming.mp3

Palestinian farmers face a myriad of challenges. In the “West Bank,” Israel’s so-called “Security Barrier” has walled them off from their olive and vegetable groves. Farmers in Gaza are liable to be shot by soldiers manning Israel’s “security” perimeter.