Dispatch from Area C

My latest on Foreign Policy's Mideast Channel: 

The last straw for Bedouin in Jerusalem's periphery?

View of dump from proposed re-location site

KHAN AL-AHMAR, WEST BANK -- United Nations officials have issued a warning that the Government of Israel's plans for Palestinian Bedouin communities living in Jerusalem's periphery could constitute "mass forcible transfers" and "grave breaches" of international law. A pending plan in the West Bank threatens to displace Khan al-Ahmar, a Bedouin village of refugees originally from Israel's south, pushed off their indigenous land in the early 1950's. Khan al-Ahmar lies on the side of a major West Bank thoroughfare and is sandwiched between the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumin and Jerusalem. This area is known as E1, an especially controversial 12 km patch of land where East Jerusalem would expand as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

It is impossible for Bedouins living here to obtain building permits from Israeli planning authorities, a situation that is not unique to Khan al-Ahmar. That Israeli officials consider Khan al-Ahmar's local community school, which educates over 70 children from surrounding villages, to be illegally constructed might spell its imminent destruction.

Over tea -- and then coffee -- Id al-Jahalin, Khan al-Ahmar's spokesman, described the perilous nature of day-to-day life in his village. There is neither running water nor electricity from a central grid here, and trash is burned as there is no waste pick-up by Israeli public services. Provocations from neighboring settlers punctuate daily routines in this pastoralist community.

The proposed site for re-residence of this community is a newly flattened plot just outside of Jerusalem, less than 100 meters from the municipal garbage dump, and in clear violation of international health standards. A thousand tons of rubbish from the Jerusalem municipality and settlements are trucked to this dump daily, making it the largest refuse site in the West Bank. An armed guard sitting atop a watch tower prohibits visitors from entering the dump. But from the proposed relocation site, one can see pipes coming out of the trash mountain, where methane gas is released in order to limit the internal combustion occurring underground. CO2 levels here are also dangerously high, according to UN officials. Standing in the squalid relocation site for the Bedouin community, the putrid scent of the dump is unbearable.

Abu Chamis in Khan al-Ahmar

Chilly?

Here's my take on Israel-US relations and where the Jewish community fits in, from The Guardian's Comment is Free: 

The Israeli government has come under criticism from both the Obama administration and American Jewish communities over the past week – the latter focused on a bizarre advertisement campaign aimed at the US diaspora. The current Israeli government's insensitivity toward American Jews has gotten their attention, but whether forthcoming Knesset bills that are an affront to democratic values will cause similar alarm is yet to be seen.

Hillary Clinton, America's top diplomat, said at this past weekend's Saban Forum in Washington that she is "concerned over Israeli democracy", according to reports. Earlier in the week, prominent US communal organisations condemned a series of public-service announcements produced by the Israel's Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, which insinuated that Israeli citizens should not marry American Jews. 

In one of the ads, a family split between the US and Israel shares a holiday rendezvous via Skype; when the Israeli grandparents ask their American granddaughter what holiday it is, she says that it's Christmas. "They will remain Israelis; their children won't," the ad's narrator advises. The campaign has since been withdrawn, but it is just one example of bad taste. 

Clinton, by the author

More troubling is a forthcoming Knesset bill which would give the Israeli government new powers to regulate – or, more accurately, police – Israeli NGOs that receive foreign funding. The draft law would "revoke the right to income tax exemption" on such non-profits, and place a 45% tax rate on contributions from "a foreign state entity", to Israeli organisations, among other parameters scarcely seen in liberal democracies. Secretary of State Clinton was said to have criticised this piece of legislation as a threat to Israel's democratic institutions at last weekend's closed forum. She also drew attention to restrictions on women singing in public, according to Israeli news outlets. As for gender segregation on Jerusalem buses, Clinton called it "reminiscent of Rosa Parks".

"Reporting from Change Square" at New America Foundation

In case you missed the discussion I hosted on Thursday with Laura Kasinof and Mohammed Albasha on developments in Yemen, here's the archived video: