‘Israel’s gone way beyond apartheid’

‘Israel’s gone way beyond apartheid’

I put this in the 'War On Terrorism' section because I was not sure where else to and because Israel fits the dictionary definition of terrorist perfectly.

Frank Barat caught up with Jeff Halper, long-time Israeli peace activist, author and director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), while he was on a European speaking tour which will take him from the UK to Poland. Here is what he had to say about the situation in Israel and Palestine…

I think what’s coming down the pipeline is that Israel today has basically finished this. We’ve gone beyond the occupation. The Palestinians have been pacified and from Israel’s point of view the whole situation has been normalized. Netanyahu went to Washington to meet with Obama last month. When he came back his adviser was asked what was new about this meeting and said ‘this is the first time in memory that an Israeli Prime Minister met with a US president and that the Palestinian issue was not even mentioned, it never came out.’

So, in this situation where the USA is really paralysed because Netanyahu has [influence over] both parties in congress and Obama does not want to do anything, Netanyahu is going to make the last move in nailing this whole thing down. Israel could well annex area C, which is 60 per cent of the West Bank. Now, a couple of months ago the European Council diplomats in Jerusalem and Ramallah sent a report to the EU saying that Israel has forcibly expelled the Palestinians from area C. Forcible expulsion is hard language for European diplomats to use.

So area C contains less than 5 per cent of the Palestinian population. In 1967 the Jordan valley contained about 250,000 people. Today it’s less than 50,000. So the Palestinians have either been driven out of the country, especially the middle class, or they have been driven to areas A and B. That’s where 96 or 97 per cent of them are. The Palestinian population has been brought down low enough, there is probably somewhere around 125,000 Palestinians in area C, so Israel could annex area C and give them full citizenship.

Basically, Israel can absorb 125,000 Palestinians without upsetting the demographic balance. And then, what is the world going to say? It’s not apartheid, Israel has given them full citizenship. So I think Israel feels it could get away with that. No one cares about what’s happening in areas A and B. If they want to declare a state, they can, Israel has no interest in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron.

In other words, we’re finished. Israel is now from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, the Palestinians have been confined in areas A and B or in small enclaves in East Jerusalem, and that’s it.

There is really no excuse for us letting this happen, we need to speak out and stop Israeli terrorism; enough people have died, enough lives have been ruined.

Why must they bring such pain, destruction and oppression to peoples lives?

Another term is ‘warehousing’ because I think that captures what’s going on better than apartheid. Warehousing is permanent. Apartheid recognizes that there is another side. With warehousing it’s like prison. There is no other side. There is us, and then there are these people that we control, they have no rights, they have no identity, they’re inmates. It’s not political, it’s permanent, static. Apartheid you can resist. The whole brilliance of warehousing is that you can’t resist because you’re a prisoner.

I just wonder something on this.....and I personally do agree about Israel being a bunch of bastards on the Occupied territories in general. An accurate land use map of the West Bank for *ACTUAL* land control status makes that situation mighty clear...

..having said that though..

Where were the Blacks serving in South African parliament and various other levels of national leadership during the Apartheid years? Where were blacks openly permitted to join the White areas of South Africa and move right into the White neighborhoods to share in everything they had....during those years?

It's something I think goes badly under reported, but Israel isn't 100% Jewish and really, never has been. It's Jewish by vast majority and the whole intent of forming the nation, but, in practice it isn't apartheid at all. Check into this and it might shock you but "Israeli Arabs" isn't a contradiction in terms and they exist and serve in Government over there, right along side their Jewish citizens.

The Israeli Arab/Muslims with full status inside Israel are the ones who are NOT rooting suicide bombers and sincerely hoping their kid becomes the best bomber on their block. Unlike South Africa, the sides really can and *DO* get along in Israel. It's just not near enough who can seem to exist side by side.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Where were the Blacks serving in South African parliament and various other levels of national leadership during the Apartheid years? Where were blacks openly permitted to join the White areas of South Africa and move right into the White neighborhoods to share in everything they had....during those years?

I often hear this argument, but those things when you look at it seem mostly for appearance.
I mean you could have the parliament 100% Palestinian and you still know that the same stuff is going to happen.

I don't know what you are talking about but they didn't just 'move in' to the ghettos that Israel created for them, they were forced into them and they clearly do not share very well.

It's something I think goes badly under reported, but Israel isn't 100% Jewish and really, never has been. It's Jewish by vast majority and the whole intent of forming the nation, but, in practice it isn't apartheid at all. Check into this and it might shock you but "Israeli Arabs" isn't a contradiction in terms and they exist and serve in Government over there, right along side their Jewish citizens.

Once again I have never seen anything to show that all that is anything more then appearance.

The Israeli Arab/Muslims with full status inside Israel are the ones who are NOT rooting suicide bombers and sincerely hoping their kid becomes the best bomber on their block. Unlike South Africa, the sides really can and *DO* get along in Israel. It's just not near enough who can seem to exist side by side.

They can have all the status they want but they still get treated like dogs.
Their families still get bombed on a daily basis.
They still are oppressed and still have very little choice in anything and everything.

Israel have hundreds of thousands of bombers they just use planes and stuff. They kill hundreds of thousands more people then any suicide bomber.
They blow up and destroy entire neighborhoods with people in their houses.

Nothing can justify Israels behavior.

Ironically this bunch of villains had more legitimate hard one Nationalism (at least as more compassionate than the Genocidal Americans) than those who presumed to displace countless generations in "the chosen land" upon a biblical land claim. Ironically too they had the same divinely lace rhetoric and even did business under international sanction. Moral relativism is a slippery slope it would seem.

reply to post by HumanCondition

Well, I can see you feel pretty strongly about that whole issue and this went beyond the point of being an issue minds changed on a long time ago. I would say this though... You point out in your last line that there is no Justification for what Israel is doing. In SOME ways, I'll agree with that. Again, as I noted, my whole attitude changed after seeing just one image. ONE graphic was enough to alter my attitude and that was the Land Use/District map of the West Bank Territory.

I'll even go so far as to say that based on their own maps of Israeli land control, that didn't look like Palestinian Territory Israel occupied, but Israeli land they graciously gave the crappiest parts to the Palestinians to live on...kinda. Now that is very crappy and there is no defense for it. Not really.


At that same time though and one simply cannot be seen without the other...There is NO excuse for the actions of the Palestinians by way of their major militant fighter groups. Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade comes to mind as one example.. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the modern variant of the PLO and Fatah are good examples as well. Israel may be bad, but they aren't blowing up Pizza Parlors and City Buses purely to kill whatever innocent people happen to be around.

There are no good guys in that situation and both sides have much to answer for and nothing to brag about. At this point? I saw, pull the U.S. back and out of this mess and let the two sides have their fight. This just won't end any other way and Earth doesn't deserve their problems for centuries more to come.