Here is another step toward apartheid, which can hardly be considered democracy by our ally, Israel. ********* Published on Thursday, October 20, 2005 by the Guardian / UK Israel Accused of 'Road Apartheid' in West Bank Army seals off main route to Palestinian vehicles Opponents say plan is to carve out new borders by Chris McGreal The Israeli military has blocked Palestinians from driving on the main artery through the West Bank in a first step towards what Israeli human rights groups say is total "road apartheid" being enforced throughout the occupied territory. Israel is cynically manipulating the security fears of ordinary Israelis. Sarit Michaeli of BTselem, Israeli human rights group The army sealed off access to Route 60 after the fatal shooting of three settlers near Bethlehem on Sunday. No private Palestinian cars are permitted on the road although public transport is still allowed. The Israeli newspaper Maariv yesterday said the government quietly gave the military the go-ahead earlier this week for a plan to culminate in barring all Palestinians from roads used by Israelis in the West Bank. "The purpose is to reach, in a gradual manner, within a year or two, total separation between the two populations. The first and immediate stage of separation applies to the roads in the territories: roads for Israelis only and roads for Palestinians only," the newspaper said. The Palestinian leadership and others claim the separation plan, and the road network to make it possible, are elements of a wider strategy to carve out new Israeli borders inside the West Bank alongside the 420-mile security barrier under construction and expansion of settlements. The plan for the occupied territory reserves the main roads for Jewish settlers and other Israelis while Palestinians will be confined to secondary routes, many little better than dirt tracks or roads which have yet to be built. Palestinian vehicles, including heavy lorries, travelling from Bethlehem to Ramallah, for instance, will be forced to take a lengthy route on a narrow road through the hills while Israelis driving between settlements near to each of the towns will travel on a highway. The Israeli government is building a number of new roads for Palestinians in areas where there are none, and plans 18 tunnels under or around roads or areas from which Palestinians will be barred. Israel is seeking foreign funding but the EU has said it is not prepared to pay for roads used in a parallel system. Israel has also built new roads in the West Bank, exclusively for non-Palestinians. "The separate roads are only one part of the separation plan," said Maariv. "One major goal of the plan is to turn the separation fence into a line to completely prevent Palestinians from entering Israeli territory." Israeli human rights group BTselem said Palestinians are barred from or have restricted access to 450 miles of West Bank roads, a system with "clear similarities" to South Africa's former apartheid regime. Sarit Michaeli, of BTselem, said: "Israel is cynically manipulating the security fears of ordinary Israelis." http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1020-04.htm
This is depressing news, and this has been going on for a long while. I'm a strong supporter of Israel, but the current and recent governments makes that very difficult. That the policies of the old South African regime are being followed by Israel is ironic on many levels. One that jumps out is the fact that they had close relations before the fall of apartheid. Another is all the terrible history of the Jewish people, when they were kept in ghettos and subjected to the worst possible treatment, while being blamed for whatever failures the government of the country they resided in chose to place at their feet. I understand their fear of terrorism. I don't think this is a solution. You can't wall out your enemies. Ask the Chinese how well that worked for them, or how well it ultimately worked for the Soviet Union in East Germany, and the rest of the Soviet client states. Keep D&D Civil.
Oct. 20, 2005, 9:16PM What South Africa could teach West Bank and Gaza Palestinians urgently need credible, effective role model By DENNIS ROSS The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has a credibility problem that his visit with President Bush is unlikely to help: how to convince his people that violence against Israel will not lead to an independent Palestinian state. While Abbas must certainly show that he can deliver for his people, he needs help in discrediting Hamas and other terrorist groups. And one of the best sources for that help is not in Washington, Brussels or Riyadh, but in Pretoria. Indeed, South Africa's experience can provide valuable inspiration for the culture of peace that Abbas says he hopes to create. Yasser Arafat loved to equate the Palestinian struggle for statehood with the struggle of South Africans against apartheid, but his was always a false analogy. In South Africa, less than 15 percent of the population controlled all the power and wealth and subjected the other 85 percent to a degrading, inhuman and segregated existence. For the oppressed majority, the answer was not one state for nonwhites and one for whites; rather, the goal was justice and majority rule. Compare that to the Palestinian movement for self-determination. Arabs today remain a minority in the area that encompasses Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. To be sure, given demographic trends, Jews will become a minority in that area within this decade, but even by 2050, Arabs would outnumber Jews by only 60 percent to 40 percent. The international community supports a two-state solution because it recognizes that there are two national movements with populations in rough equality. That was never the case in South Africa. And while Palestinians have endured occupation and a denial of their rights, their commitment to violent struggle has sadly perpetuated this condition and stymied their national aspirations. Why raise the South African comparison today? Because Palestinians respect the South African model but are not learning from it. For all of Arafat's comparisons to the African National Congress, it did not have an ideology of violence: although the ANC attacked the military and economic underpinnings of apartheid, it forswore attacks on civilians and generally expelled those members who violated that policy. In contrast, no Palestine Liberation Organization member has ever been drummed out for violence against Israelis. As the price of joining the Oslo process, Arafat renounced terrorism, but he never delegitimized it; he never called those who carried out terrorist acts against Israelis enemies of the Palestinian cause. I don't mean to idealize the African National Congress. But the Palestinians urgently need a credible and effective role model for assuming responsibility and rejecting violence. First, they must act in Gaza to prove that they can govern themselves and fulfill their responsibilities, including their security responsibilities. Second, they now have a leader, Abbas, who rejects violence but lacks Arafat's revolutionary authority and is being challenged by Hamas, which claims that Gaza vindicates the resort to terrorism. Arab leaders — who could have an impact — remain nowhere to be found. The South Africans are far less reticent, especially in challenging those who call for violence, and they are likely to be taken seriously by the Palestinian public. I know from my conversations with members of South Africa's government in Pretoria this summer that they are interested in playing a role — an interest that they have signaled in several venues, including meetings with Palestinian and Israeli officials. Now is perhaps the time for a visit to Ramallah by Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's president, to share his country's experience and its lessons for the Palestinians. No one can question whether South Africans struggled. No one can doubt the moral authority of their words. And no one can more forcefully offer a successful and nonviolent pathway to national liberation and a government of basic decency. Ross, envoy to the Middle East in the Clinton administration, is counselor of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author of "The Missing Peace." http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3406564
"Poseidon became bored with the sea. He let fall his trident. Silently he sat on the rocky coast and a gull, dazed by his presence, described wavering circles around his head." - Kafka Poseidon, sitting bored on his rock, didn't notice that the wall behind him had crumbled, his enemies were at his back, the trident was nowhere to be found, and the gull had pooped on his head. (feel free to use my signature anytime... ) Keep D&D Civil.
Wow, not so much a post as a piece of post-modern art. I like it Deckard, I like it. I'll see if I can deconstruct someone's post sometime in the future...
I don't think South Africa is an entirely accurate comparison to Israel b/c the South African government did not want to necessarily get rid of all the natives. On the contrary, they needed them for labor (extensive mining industries, for instance). And they also had tons of land with which to keep the natives well separated from their own world. The Israeli government on the other hand wants absolutely nothing to do with the Palestinians. Their ideal scenario would be for all the Palestinians to just disappear. And that is indeed slowly but surely happening, evidenced by the fact that more Palestinians live as refugees and descendants of refugees in the neighboring countries outside of the holy land. IMO, South Africa enacted apartheid but Israel has been practicing something more along the lines of ethnic cleansing.
Well actually palestinians are a pretty big Israeli labor pool as well. Israeli arabs tend to fill the labor pool up because of cheaper wages and what not, similar to the South African situation. The Israeli policy in terms of roads and walls has gone way to far. The stories of people being locked out of their homes and farms for weeks as well as the problem of water distribution in an area where modern irrigation is non-existant really demonstrates a humanitarian crisis. I think over-aggressive Israeli retaliation tactics such as bulldozing homes (which the Israeli government earlier admitted that these actions didn't actually do anything to reduce terror) haven't helped either. On the flip side, corruption by the PLO and Palestinian Authority have robbed Gaza and the West Bank of any infrastructure as well as promoting a lack of trust in Palestinian government and legitimizing some of the arguments presented by radical groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. Also, the two-faced nature of policy by Arafat towards the end of his regime really didnt help either. I thought peace was possible during the Rabin-Arafat-Clinton time but that died with Rabin and I can honestly say that the prospect for a full Palestinian state within 20 years is almost 0. The structural problems created by both sides have robbed the region of any chance for cooperation and dialogue that might result in something good.
I think the recent withdrawal from Gaza, combined with the continuing building on the West Bank , much less the Apartheid roads, shows that the oft raised security issue as a reason not to withdraw is a bogus issue. Sharon and therefore Israelis as a whole, are just fighting to permanently seize more of the West Bank. Bush and the neocons are supporting this. Now it is true that Israel occaasionally is fired on from Gaza and could be fired on from the West Bank after withdrawal. The security situation if anything appears better after the withdrawal from Gaza. Israel now responds with overwhelming fire power and in fact no longer has to worry about hitting Israeli settlers, now that they have departed. Additional security personnel are available to defend the legal boundaries of Israel,now that they aren't tied down defending settlers in Gaza. A similar rationale exists for exiting the West Bank and has the bonus of allowing Israel to follow international law, UN resolutions. It would be good for Israel not to be a pariah state. Let's boycott, cut back on our subsidizing of Israel or whatever it takes non-violently to make Israel obey international law and withdraw from the West Bank. It will make Israel safer. If the US can get credit for this it would help to undo much of the damage to our reputation in the Arab world and the world at large caused by the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This would help us in the real war on terrorism. If we got the will, this is one problem we can solve.
One thing to consider is that hamas is claiming that terrorism is beneficial (it caused the withdraw). I don't think that is increasing the security of Israel. One sided sanctions are not the answer.
Yes but hamas is an organization that no western country that we know of funds them. As for sanctioning Israel, that type of one sided rhetoric is where the root of the problem lies. I agree much of Israel's security strategy can be legitimately questioned but don't kid yourself, the Palestinian authority has messed it up just as much. One sided policy that flips support from Israel to Palestine just builds resentment on the otherside. I feel Bush's "roadmap for peace" was a solid idea but because of a lack of equal enforcement for both sides, it is a roadmap in name only. Thanks to massive lobbying on both sides, fair policy judgements from the US and EU seem impossible. This also happens to be one of the main reasons behind my cynicism of the situation. Not only are Israel and Palestine both messing up, but the US and EU aren't exactly great themselves.
In discussing the West Bank one should understand that, in addition to the historical, cultural, and religious reasons for both sides to be contentious over the land, there are legitimate military issues. In the six day war of 1967, the Jordanian Army discovered that some parts of it make perfect artillery locations and in this conflict they used it very effectively. If I were in Israel's position, I would be most concerned about the disposition of this area of occupied land, as in a worst case scenario this could be the area of land where the most damage to Israel can be done. The devil, of course, is in the details, but this is the most strategicaly dangerous of all the occupied territories. There is little to no danger from Gaza and very little from the Golan Heights in military terms.
Don't worry, whatever the Israelis gave back from the 'hell on earth' called Gaza, they are trying hard to recover in the West Bank and especially Jerusalem. If the fence the Israelis are building was on their side of the internationally-accepted border, then very little could be said in opposition to it. However, as it stands, the fence is undeniably Israel's way to 'create reality on the ground' by grabbing lands/encircling illegal settlements and unilaterally establishing a de facto border of its own choosing, on its own terms. Sharon is a very shrewd politician, I will give him that.
