VOA常速英语2007年-Borders, Settlements Key Issues at Mideast Conf

By Jeff Swicord
Jerusalem
27 November 2007
 

With the U.S.-sponsored Mideast conference underway in Annapolis Maryland, borders are one of the issues on the agenda.  Since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Jewish settlements and Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank have dramatically changed the surrounding borders.  VOA'S Jeff Swicord takes a look at how one Palestinian family near Jerusalem has been affected¹.

Since the 1920s, Mohamad Askar's family has lived and worked on this land near Jerusalem.

"The land is our life.  We are agricultural, we eat from it, we live on it," says the Palestinian farmer.

His father and grandfather lived here in Bedouin tents.  In 1972, he built a stone house on land that was part of the West Bank village of Hezma.  Several years later, Israeli settlers built housing on the surrounding land.  As those settlements expanded, the Israeli government moved the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem to include them.  Today, Mohamad's once-remote West Bank home is surrounded by Israeli neighborhoods.  His house is now within the boundaries of East Jerusalem, inside Israel proper.

He says the Israeli Housing Authority has tried to buy his land twice. Each time, he refused. "Several times they came to my house and sat here where we are.  They put a check to sign in front of me and told me to fill in the amount of money I want for my house and land.  The representative from the Israeli Housing Authority told me, 'You cannot live with the Jews’."

Mohamad says Israel has taken 70 percent of the land that once belonged to the village of Hezma.  Most of his family now has Israeli identity cards.  Without them they could not legally live or even enter Israel. Two of his sons do not have them.  The brothers live across the street and over the separation barrier in Hezma.  They must have special permission to visit their father inside Israel.

"When they get permission to come, they receive their names at the checkpoint,” explains the father. “But sometimes the shift changes and there are different soldiers manning the checkpoint.  Then, they have difficulties."

Avrahaam Kirayati, a prominent Israeli lawyer, says the settlements around Jerusalem are perfectly² legal under Israeli law.  He says West Bank lands that were not registered as belonging to Palestinians during the British Mandate³ period, became Israeli land under Israeli law after the 1967 Arab/Israeli war.

"Those lands not registered under the Mandate law as belonging to persons, like him and me, those were decided⁴ to be called state lands,” says the lawyer. “And those state lands were allocated⁵ for building the new quarters around Jerusalem."

Avrahaam acknowledges that Palestinians like Mohamad are in a difficult situation.  In his mind, the most likely scenario⁶ to come out of a peace agreement will be that people like Mohamed will become Palestinian citizens living in the state of Israel. 

But Mohamad will have none of that. "I am Palestinian as my father and my grandfathers were.  And Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine.  I will not leave Jerusalem.  I will stay Palestinian, as will my sons," he says.

Mohamad understands the fate of his family may be in the hands of the peace process.  Not a comforting thought, given the failures of the past.  So he holds tight to the one commodity that defines all people of this region and hopes for the best.

"I hope that peace will happen between Jews and Arabs.  But that is out of my hands.  What is in my hands, what I have now, is my land."

1 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

2 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

3 mandate   

n.托管地；命令，指示

参考例句：

• The President had a clear mandate to end the war.总统得到明确的授权结束那场战争。
• The General Election gave him no such mandate.大选并未授予他这种权力。

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 allocated   

adj. 分配的 动词allocate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The Ford Foundation allocated millions of dollars for cancer research. 福特基金会拨款数百万美元用于癌症研究。
• More funds will now be allocated to charitable organizations. 现在会拨更多的资金给慈善组织。

6 scenario   

n.剧本，脚本；概要

参考例句：

• But the birth scenario is not completely accurate.然而分娩脚本并非完全准确的。
• This is a totally different scenario.这是完全不同的剧本。