We at the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPRI) ask for your support.

As 2010 comes to a close we are compelled to reflect on the conditions of those less fortunate than ourselves. The Palestinian villagers of Um al-Rehan, and the settled Bedouin of the South Hebron Hills are two such groups. Both suffer from the challenges of poverty and both are victims of the distorted political landscape that characterizes this long unresolved conflict.

Um al-Rehan is a small Palestinian village with a population of four hundred and fifty. It is eight kilometers east of the 1948 Armistice Line on land separated from the rest of the West Bank by the Israeli Security Barrier. Members of the community are forbidden from entering Israel. Access to the cities and towns of Palestine requires that they cross the Security Barrier through a checkpoint that is subject to periodic and unannounced closures.

Overlapping Palestinian and Israeli jurisdiction creates a slow and difficult legal maze leaving the village without access to essential infrastructure. Untreated wastewater from villagers' homes flows to cesspits where it often percolates into the ground, contaminating the underlying mountain aquifer. The lack of a functioning sewage treatment system threatens the health of not only the people Um al-Rehan, but also everyone else in the region, including Israelis who get 25% of their water from the same aquifer.

The Bedouin communities of the South Hebron Hills suffer an even more difficult existence. 5000 people struggle to survive on arid land on which they have been settled. These poor communities endure harassment from Israeli settlers and receive little assistance from the Palestinian Authority. Although they are located next to Israeli settlements and IDF bases, they have no access to the electrical grid or water lines, and are forced to rely on expensive water provided by tankers during the hot summer months. The increasingly evident effects of global climate change and the lack of any political intervention have only exacerbated their condition.

IPCRI recognizes that these communities cannot wait for a comprehensive peace agreement to restore their right to live a productive and normal life. That is why it is imperative that we immediately address their most pressing needs. In Um al-Rehan we are working with the support of the Japanese, New Zealand, and Australian Governments to build a "constructed wetlands" system that will offer a natural, environmentally sustainable alternative to conventional sewage treatment. It relies on gravity rather than electric pumps, and treatment is performed by biological rather than chemical means. The treated water can then be used for irrigation, reducing the demand on exhausted non-renewable resources.

This focus on environmental stewardship is also present in IPCRI's approach to solving the equally challenging problems facing the Palestinians of the South Hebron Hills. There we partnered with the Government of New Zealand and Comet-ME, a grassroots, Israeli and Palestinian organization that builds and installs small, durable wind and solar energy generators. As a result of our combined efforts, over 1000 residents now have access to electricity. Children can study after sunset and families can charge mobile phones, often the only means of contact with the surrounding cities and towns. Most significantly, electricity allows the communities new avenues to economic self-sufficiency. Electric butter churners can cut a task that used to take more than three hours down to less than thirty minutes, and refrigerators help to preserve this butter and other milk products until they can be brought to market.

IPCRI, the only joint Palestinian-Israeli think and "do-tank," is dedicated to developing practical solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Our efforts to provide sustainable sewage treatment and rural electrification help the villagers to meet their immediate needs and to alleviate their suffering. We understand, however, that only a comprehensive peace between Israel and Palestine can liberate a people stranded on their own land, lost between governments, and almost without hope. That is why on-the-ground, cross-boundary, environmentally sustainable development is only one part of IPCRI's project portfolio. We need your support to continue working for peace. Your contribution will make a measurable difference.

Help Make 2011 the year of peace. Click here and support IPCRI today. 

Yours Sincerely,

 

Gershon Baskin & Hanna Siniora

Co-CEOs