I speak to Elad Orian of Comet-ME, who is campaigning to prevent the demolition of solar panels providing electricity to remote Palestinian communities

Elad Orian is clearly a man on mission. It’s just gone 8pm and he is busy telling me about his work with Comet-ME, which provides renewable energy to Palestinian villagers living in the south Hebron Hills. His mission, however, is to save 6 of these projects from demolition. “The Palestinians were hoping it wouldn’t come to this as the solar panels had been there for a while,” tells me Orian over the phone. “But in the same way, this isn’t exactly a big surprise. In Area C there are around 10,000 outstanding demolition orders…”

No Permits for Palestinians in Area C

The argument goes that that these solar projects were installed without permits in Area C of the West Bank which is under Israeli control. As such the Israeli authorities have every right to demolish these solar panels and wind turbines, even if they are the sole source of electricity for some villagers. So why didn’t Comet-ME and the German aid group Medico which helped fund these projects apply for permits?

“The reason that we didn’t apply for permits is that we know we wouldn’t have got them,” replies Orian. “We would be applying for places in Area C and Israel never grants permits there for Palestinians…” In fact, according to figures from the pressure group Peace Now, in total, just 91 permits were granted for Palestinian construction in Area C between 2001 and 2007. In the same period, more than 10,000 Israeli settlement units were built. And more than 1,500 Palestinian structures were demolished.

International Pressure to Stop Demolition

“Why they have decided to get demolition orders now I really don’t know,” continues Orian. “One of the solar panels was built quite near to an Israeli checkpoint with soldiers working there and so it’s not like they didn’t know that it was there. They did.” Orian also explains that as an occupying power, Israel has a duty under the Geneva Convention to provide basic facilities such as energy to Palestinians living in Area C and yet many of them don’t have access to electricity.

Comet-ME and the German government are currently working hard to put pressure on Israel to leave the solar panels in tact. “I do think there is still a chance that the solar panels won’t be demolished as there is lots of international pressure to stop this,” says Orian. “The German foreign office has been involved and also many others see the importance of protecting the Palestinian communities in Area C.”

Whilst the demolitions may deemed justifiable to some, Orian insists Israel has nothing to gain from demolishing these renewable energy projects which are providing a lifeline to isolated Palestinians.

:: You can help support the campaign to protect the solar projects here.

:: Image via Tomer Appelbaum.

For more on

Interview with Elad Orian: Building Wind and Solar Energy for Palestinians with Comet-ME

Palestinians Attempt to Build Secret Renewable Energy Plants

Comet-ME Continues to Bring Power To Villages In South Hebron Hills

The post Battle To Save Solar In Remote Palestinian Villages appeared first on Green Prophet.

If you want to get off the beaten track, eat great food and meet locals in Palestine than a stay at a Palestinian guesthouse could be the thing for you. Rather than staying with huge, impersonal hotels that don’t connect with you or reflect your views, you could stay at a number of small guesthouses which support everything from Bedouins, women’s right, environmental conservation to community arts and culture.

A new website by Green Prophet’s very own eco-tourism guide Sarah Irving has been launched with a comprehensive list of guesthouses in Palestine. As Sarah points out, the guesthouses are important ways for the local communities to generate income and jobs, to build personal connections between diverse communities and also help tourists see a little bit more of the real Palestine.

“The important thing about all these guesthouses is that they are small, locally-run operations which create jobs and income, separate from the ‘aid agencies’ which are so involved in the West Bank,” explains Sarah who has been visiting the Middle East since 2001. “It’s about Palestinian people working to improve their own living conditions, rather than being dependent on donors.”

A not-for-profit project, the website which is called ‘Guesthouses in Palestine’ consists of listings with contact information-  no fees will go to the guesthouses. As such, Sarah welcomes all visitors to add their recommendations and experiences (positive and negative) if they’ve stayed at any of the guesthouses.

Visiting Parts of Palestine That Mainstream Tourism Ignores

Sarah Irving, who is the author behind the Bradt Guide to Palestine– the only mainstream guidebook to Palestine which will be published in November 2011, explains that the website is particularly important as it bridges the gap between tourists and the guesthouses. “The main problem for many of these guesthouses has been publicising themselves. Most do not have the resources to set up bespoke websites or conduct marketing campaigns… [This] means that the Palestinian economy is missing out on an important market, and independent travellers in Palestine miss out on great opportunities to meet local people, eat local food and see parts of Palestine which mainstream tourism doesn’t cover,” explains the site.

For example, a recently opened guesthouse in Sebastia near Nablus uses soap made by local women from olive oil grown in Sebastia’s groves and breakfast might include taboun bread still smoky from the nearby oven, zeit (olive oil) and za’atar (thyme) from the surrounding hills, jam made from figs or cherries from the village’s orchards, and fresh fruit grown only yards away.  Sarah adds, “The other important thing about guesthouses is that they give visitors a great opportunity to meet local people and stay in more out-of-the way places than if they just go to the big hotels in Ramallah, Bethlehem or Jericho.”

Embracing Community Tourism Which Supports Locals

The local guesthouse are also a much needed alternative to commercial tourism in the region which jumps from tourist hotspot to the next without considering the locals and ways to support them. Community tourism, which works more closely with locals as many of the guesthouses do, means that not only can you have a thoroughly enjoyable holiday but you can leave with the knowledge that you made a real contribution to the community you visited.

Guesthouses like Ibdaa in Deheishe or the Yafa Centre in Balata are also important ways for people to witness daily life in the West Bank refugee camps, and to support cultural and social organisations there. Rather than your money going to big businesses, you will have supported a local initiative and you also get the opportunity to explore the country through less conventional means such as bike tourism or hiking through Palestinian countryside. “Sure, it’s a difficult situation – the Palestinian economy will be constrained by Israeli military decisions and the presence of settlements for as long as the Occupation is in place,” admits Sarah. “But Palestinian people deserve the chance to build a better life even under these conditions.”

:See Guesthouses in Palestine for more information.

:: Image via Sarah Irving.

For more on Palestinian Guesthouses see:

Why One Should Linger In Sebastia, Near Nablus

Jordan Valley Eco-Centre Opens Community Guesthouse

MENA countries add revolutionary credentials to eco-tourism

The post A Whirlwind Guide to Palestinian Guesthouses appeared first on Green Prophet.

Children as young as ten are making a living by sorting through rubbish on the outskirts of the West Bank city Hebron. Following the second intifada in 2000, hundreds of Palestinians previously employed in Israel found themselves without work. By sorting and selling recyclables, often at night, young boys and grown men are able to provide a small amount of money for their families. A recycling initiative of sorts, Maan news agency nonetheless describe an unbearable scene of rotting organic matter and “chemical effluvia.”

Rubbish from neighboring Palestinian towns is brought to this dump, surrounded by cypress-tipped hills and nearby olive groves. Often the trucks come at night, which encourages workers to stay at on site in a makeshift shanty village.

Shacks made from old wood planks and covered with tarpaulin or plastic trash bags are temporary housing for trash workers eager to make a bit of  extra money or reluctant to travel to their home town Yatta. Maan says that the workers sort through vegetable scraps, washing liquid bottles, old clothes, and soda cans.

To cope with the sun and stench, some of the boys wear Kaffiyas over their heads. They pull anything valuable from the dump – wood, aluminum, plastic, steel – and add it to their pile.

One boy told the news agency that they each have their own pile and there are no bosses. Some of the materials are transported to Hebron, where they are consolidated and sold for reuse in Israel and elsewhere.

Clothes that can be washed and reused are kept aside for themselves.

Some of the boys left school and started working in the dump after the main breadwinners were no longer able to provide – either because of an injury, or in one case, death.

One boy told Maan the “Jewish garbage is better than Arab garbage” because it contains more steel. This work fetches up to 30 Shekels or $8 a day.

More on the West Bank:

International Geographers Explore the West Bank In Search of Common Ground

The “Golden Sheep” West Bank Cheese Incident

Powering West Bank Geothermally

The post “Jewish Garbage Is Better Than Arab Garbage,” Says 10-Yr Old Palestinian Worker appeared first on Green Prophet.

Maan writes:

“Not only is the industry non-sustainable, it is contaminating the groundwater and destroying the green forest that gives shelter to the town, and once provided a hideout for Sheikh Izz Addin Al-Qassam, the leader of 1930s revolution, and namesake for Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades.”

One Yaabad resident told Ma’an that the factories’ pollution is “so bad that if you hang up your clothes outside at night, the next morning they will be so grey and rank that you will not be able to wear them.”

At the same time, those Ya’abad residents who work in coal production said it provides a handsome income of 5000 shekels a month ($1350). A 22-year-old coal worker, Yasser Abu-Baker, said ““We benefit from this career, our community benefits, and all of Palestine benefits because we can produce all the wood coal the country needs up here.”

Ya’abad Mayor Walid Al-Abbady said that the only solution is to move the workshops outside of town, which helped Egyptian wood-coal manufacturers to work safely. However, he says, Israeli control of the West Bank is thwarting such a move because it would require construction outside of city limits and in Area C, the part of the West Bank under full Israeli control since Oslo. Now Ya’abad is leaning on the Palestinian Authority to help make the change.

::Photo from Maan News

The post West Bank Village of Yaabad Deals with Industrial Pollution appeared first on Green Prophet.

According to Agence France-Presse, 47 families sell fruit, vegetables, preserves and bread in Beirut’s Souq El Tayeb, the first farmers market in the country.

Chef and TV personality Kamal Mouzawak started the souq in 2004, and refused to close it during the 2006 war between the Hizbollah terror group and Israel.

He told AFP, “Whether Christian or Muslim, we all eat the same foods. The differences are more regional.”

Souq El Tayeb is part of a farmers market trend across the Middle East: Eco-Baladi markets Palestinian produce, while Tel Aviv hosts a slow food market at the city’s port.

Related: Pope Leo visits Lebanon in an act of faith and peace

Mouzawak has also begun a traveling with his vendors to reach other parts of Lebanon. A new restaurant called Tawlet Souq El Tayeb featuring freshly made regional fare will soon open as well. According to AFP, far from pursuing political turmoil, the farmers’ focus on pushing good food out the door:

Their interests revolve more around who can bake the best kebbeh (or kibbeh), a traditional dish made of minced meat and burghul (crushed wheat), or come up with the tastiest tabbouleh, a parsley-based salad, or grow the most mouth-watering vegetables and fruits.

One caveat of the farmers market may be it audience: the vendors cater to “well-heeled Beirutis.”

Green Prophet writer Jeff Yoskowitz visited the Tel Aviv market last summer and noticed a serious class problem:

This farmers market was so ridiculously expensive as compared to the shuk that I only bought purple potatoes and blackberries and then left after sampling all the free foods I could. The choice to hold the market at the port, in the North of Tel Aviv, pretty much shows the kind of constituency they’re hoping to develop: yuppy Tel Aviv types. Had they held the market more in the center of the city perhaps the ideals would spread. Instead I was surrounded by iphone carrying Israelis enjoying a luxury market.

On the other hand, high prices may be the only way to keep rural farmers in business. Whatever the case, we wish Souq El Tayeb good luck.

The post Lebanon Farmers Market Makes Food Not War appeared first on Green Prophet.

This month, I wrote a piece for the Jerusalem Report on Odeh Sabarna (left), who runs  the Beit Ommar Cooperative Agricultural Products and Services Society out of the southern West Bank village of 15,000. Sabarna is trying to sell fair trade raisins to Germany. His cooperative also buys chemicals, both conventional and organic, in bulk in order to cut costs for small farmers.

We’ve written here about the Israeli label SAHA: Fair Trade, which imports Palestinian olive oil, grape honey and za’atar to health food stores, mainly in Tel Aviv. Sabarna’s story is about the Palestinians who make it further away from home by using modern marketing to preserve centuries-old farming practices.For a brief summary, there are several other groups promoting Palestinian Fair Trade, mainly on the West Bank. The Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC) organization exports olive oil, couscous, sundried tomatoes, almonds. Nasser Abufarha runs the Palestine Fair Trade Association out of Jenin, which sells similar products along with honey and tehini. Palestinian olive oil is the most successful product.

However, all these organizations are working at a time when farming is increasingly less profitable and less desirable. Beit Ommar is on the road between Bethlehem and Hebron, cities with promising off-farm job prospects. Because land in Beit Ommar is scarce, the farmland at the village edge is checkered with new concrete houses. Sabarna says he will send his three kids to university, as will the rest of the village parents. It seems like even for Fair Trade farmers, agriculture is more and more a side occupation and not the main source of income.

You can read the full article by clicking these thumbnails (you have to click through a few times to see them full size).

Sabarna is looking for English-speaking volunteers to edit the Beit Ommar Cooperative’s Web site. If you’d like to contact him to visit the farm or to help out, check out the Web site, where you can find his e-mail address and phone number.

And to see more pictures and the story behind this article, check out TheTruthHerzl.

(Photo by Daniella Cheslow)

The post Palestinian Farmers Look to Export Fair Trade Grapes appeared first on Green Prophet.

You heard it here when Jenin got a mall-ish furniture superstore. Now East Jerusalem is also joining the trend.  According to Danny Rubinstein at YnetNews, the Nusseibeh family has started work on the A-Dar Mall on Salah-a-Din Street, right outside the Old City in the Sheikh Jarrakh neighborhood (Photo of Salah-a-Din Street from Wiki Images)

This is a recycling project, as the ten-story building has been in Nusseibeh hands since the Ottoman rule. In the past it was a children’s home, an infirmary and a school.

The first floors of the building will be for shops, while the higher storeys will house offices. According to Ynet, it’s “the first commercial enterprise in East Jerusalem since its [1967] annexation to Israel.”

I highly support building a commercial site in the center of town. Rather than a suburban-type shopping center at the edge of a city, which sucks out the business of small local merchants, more shops and offices in the middle of downtown can bring people to the area and help the storekeepers around it.

The post East Jerusalem Getting First Mall appeared first on Green Prophet.

Israeli nature advocates are proud of their efforts at both nature conservation and cultivating a love of hiking among the people. However, an article this week in the Boston Globe points out that creating nature preserves often means expelling the indigenous people who once lived in them. Author Mark Dowie writes that the practice began in the American parks of Yosemite and Yellowstone, but spread worldwide to places as diverse as Kenya, Botswana, Thailand, Peru and Panama. Conservation groups as a result must grapple with this unflattering picture:

“Not only has it dispossessed millions of people who might very well have been excellent stewards of the land, but it has engendered a worldwide hostility toward the whole idea of wildland conservation – damaging the cause in many countries whose crucial wildland is most in need of protection.”

Reading about this global phenomenon made me think about the Israeli case. I have heard that human rights organizations and Palestinians take a skeptical eye to Israeli tree planting efforts. Nature preserves here also have a political cast, according to a report on planning in the West Bank issued by the organization Bimkom: Planners for Building Rights (The report, called The Prohibited Zone, is here).

According to Bimkom, the northern West Bank village of Umm al-Rihan has suffered greatly because it is in what Israel has declared to be a forest preserve (map from report, p.70). As a result, the dozens of residential buildings, the mosque, the local clinic and part of the school have been built without permits. This makes them illegal and subject to demolition orders from the army (see pages 92-95).

Bimkom adds that while Israel enforces the forest preserve rules against the Palestinians, Jewish settlements of Reihan, Shaked and Hinanit have grown unhindered.

“Thus, the Civil Administration’s planning police in the Umm ar-Rihan area exhibits flexible use of various definitions of the boundaries of the forest reserve, according to political needs and according to the ethno-national identity of the people for whom the construction is intended” (p. 94).

One bright light for indigenous people in Middle Eastern conservation efforts may be the Dana Natural Reserve, located in western Jordan (photo courtesy of Wild Jordan). Although I have not been there, tourbooks and the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature claim that this national site was built around the people already living there. The government built water lines to provide the people with a drinking supply, and helped craft a business scheme for the locals to market the jam they made from the fruit trees of the preserve. When visitors go through the park, they see the natural beauty of both the plants and views, as well as the people who grew up in the surroundings and tailored their lives to the unique environment.

(Top picture taken from BostonGlobe.com. Full Globe article here)

The post Boston Globe: Who wins and loses from wildland conservation? appeared first on Green Prophet.

As we’ve mentioned often here at Green Prophet, nature knows no boundaries.  The environment, therefore, can provide a powerful incentive for collaboration amidst conflict.

Last week, in yet another example of cross-border environmental cooperation, the Council for a Beautiful Israel brought 25 Palestinian teachers and educators to their educational center in Tel Aviv for special training in environmental education.

The training was modeled after previous cooperation between the Council for a Beautiful Israel and the Towns Association for Environmental Quality, Agan Beit Natufa, a leading environmental organization among Israel’s minority Palestinian (Arab-Israeli) sector.

The delegation, all members of the Palestinian Authority’s educational system, learned new ways to integrate environmental awareness into their classroom education and to involve municipal authorities in environmental matters.

Eshel Segel, head of the Council for a Beautiful Israel, said

We welcome this productive cooperation, which began a year ago, and we’re happy to do our part to raise environmental awareness among young people in the Palestinian Authority.  We hope that this cooperation, in both pedagogy and environmental science, will bear fruit soon and we can all enjoy a better environment.

Hopefully this training session is only the beginning, and this cooperative spirit will  continue to allow Israelis and Palestinians to work together to protect their shared environmental future!

:: Epoch Times (Hebrew)
:: Jerusalem Post

Image: C’est Moi!

More on Palestinian environmental education and awareness:
“The Good Water Project” Recruits Kids From Jordan, Israel and the PA To Learn How It’s All Water Under The Bridge
Bustan Qaraaqa: Permaculture and Empowerment For Palestinians in the West Bank
Palestinian Eco-Activism is on the Rise

The post Council for a Beautiful Israel Trains Palestinian Teachers on Environmental Education appeared first on Green Prophet.

As the resting place of the Abraham and (unfortunately) a hot spot for conflict, the West Bank city of Hebron (or Hevron or al-Khalil, depending on who you ask!) is pretty notorious.

Soon, this city will also become an important part of the Middle East’s ongoing clean energy revolution!

Last week the European Commission signed an agreement with the Patient’s Friend Society Al Ahli Hospital in Hebron to finance a wind-energy production system for over 40 percent of the hospital’s energy needs.

“This will be the first institution in Palestine to generate its electricity from wind power, and it is hoped that this project can serve as a model for others,” organizers said in a statement sent to Ma’an News Agency.  “This landmark project will constitute a model for green energy systems in the region.”

In addition to installing a wind turbine that can produce as much as 700 kilowatts of energy to serve the hospital’s needs, the project will study the potential for further wind energy development in the West Bank.  Hebron, which is one of the largest cities in the West Bank, is an ideal location for wind energy production because of its high elevation and near-constant winds.

Expanding the renewable energy sector in the Palestinian Territories is important because it will both allow Palestinians to meet their human and economic development needs (consider that this first project is powering one of the West Bank’s largest health care systems!) and to protect the local and global environment.

This is certainly good news, and hopefully the first of many such achievements!

:: Ma’an News

Image: dawnzy58

For more on Palestinian environmental solutions:
Gaza Teacher Promotes Solar Panels During Blackouts In The Strip
European Union to Help Protect Palestinian Environment
Palestinian Eco-Activism is on the Rise

The post Groundbreaking Wind Energy Project to Power Palestinian Hospital appeared first on Green Prophet.