The bigger picture of the Negev’s Um al-Hiran

Posted on by mahadmin

By Nadim Nashif and Dalal Hilou, published by the Huffington Post

For the past 60 years, Arab Palestinian Bedouin populations in the Negev desert in southern Israel have struggled to simply stay on their land in the face of discrimination and the threat of displacement. For residents of Umm al-Hiran in the southern Naqab — the Arabic term for the Negev — time is running out on a 12-year legal battle against demolition.

The fate of Umm al-Hiran matters to us at Baladna-Association of Arab Youth, just as it matters for the rest of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. We account for 20 percent of Israel’s population, yet our ability to build and live on our land is just one of the many rights being violated by successive Israeli governments, as documented by many human rights organizations, such as Adalah — The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

The inhabitants of present-day Umm al-Hiran were moved there by the Israeli military in 1956, eight years after the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948, during which 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their lands. Towards the end of the 1960s, Israel adopted a policy of relocating Bedouins into seven towns established by the Israeli government, and 11 recognized villages, in order to clear the way for the development of Jewish-only communities and the infrastructure to support them. Several Bedouin communities, like Umm al-Hiran, refused to accept Israeli offers of land in the established townships designed for them. Umm al-Hiran’s government-issued lease to the land formed a basis for legal contestation against eviction and demolition orders issued in 2003 and 2004. The only move the villagers are willing to make is back to their ancestral lands to live next to the kibbutz since established there.

Umm al-Hiran is not alone in its struggle. Dozens of the Bedouin villages in the Negev are unrecognized by the state of Israel. For decades, these unrecognized villages have struggled on a day-to-day basis as well as within the court system for basic entitlements like electricity, water, enrollment at nearby schools, and for the construction of amenities such as playgrounds, parks and cemeteries. Arab Bedouin villages are collectively the poorest communities in Israel. There are few elementary schools and no high schools in the villages, access to health services is very difficult, and most villages are not accessible by paved roads. Even one of the largest villages, Wadi al-Na’am, does not have public transport, emergency services, or a high school despite its more than 10,000 inhabitants.

On May 5, 2015, Umm al-Hiran reached the end of the appeals process when the Israeli court system condemned the village to destruction. A Jewish-Israeli settlement named Hiran will be built in its place, and national-religious families wishing to live there will be provided with government subsidies.

Nearby Al-Araqib village has engaged in another form of non-violent resistance by rebuilding after demolition. Umm al-Hiran has a unique legal status among Bedouin villages in the Negev, but for villages like Al-Araqib, rebuilding is the only means they have to remain on their land: Al-Araqib villagers have faced intentional destruction of meager infrastructure and their entire community of homes around 83 times in five years. Yet they have rebuilt each time. Then in early May, the Israeli State sued Al-Araqib for $500,000 to cover Israel’s demolition costs. The persecution is relentless.

What is happening in Umm al-Hiran and Al-Araqib is also happening in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and in Arab towns in Israel, such as Dahmash and Kafr Kana. In a striking parallel, the West Bank village of Khirbet Susiya in Area C could be destroyed at any time, rendering its inhabitants homeless and making way for a Jewish settlement. Like many other unrecognized villages in Area C of the West Bank, its structures have already been demolished several times.

The State of Israel’s systematic policies have for decades perpetuated a pattern of displacement and discrimination that squeezes the Palestinian population into smaller and smaller confines of land. In other words, the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba lives on to this day.

The resettlement strategy for the Negev met a setback in 2013 when the infamous Prawer Plan was shelved, due in part to widespread protests and international criticism. The proposed bill aimed to forcibly evict tens of thousands of Bedouins and demolish dozens of villages. Young people organized demonstrations across the Palestinian territories and human rights groups coordinated international solidarity actions to put a stop to the plan. Yet, although it was put aside, the intentions of the Plan are still being carried out on a smaller and more discreet scale through home demolitions.

Although legal avenues of resistance have been exhausted by Umm al-Hiran, protest marches have already begun. If these are to succeed, their demands must be echoed in the world’s capitals, by governments and the international solidarity movement. Home demolitions, forcible displacement and dispossession are forms of ongoing ethnic cleansing. They continue to be among the most pressing Palestinian issues today and must be stopped.

Nadim Nashif is a Policy Member of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network and Director of Baladna: The Association for Arab Youth. Dalal Hillou is a Palestinian-American with a passion for law and social justice, and is currently interning at Baladna: The Association for Arab Youth

Palestinian jailed by Israel could die, says family

Posted on by mahadmin

By Patrick Strickland

Published by Aljazeera

Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan’s family is worried for his life as he continues his already weeks-long hunger strike in protest against his imprisonment by Israel.

Adnan, who launched on an indefinite hunger strike on April 6, was placed under medical supervision at a clinic in Israel’s Ramla prison earlier this month.

“We are very concerned about his health right now,” his wife Randa told Al Jazeera. “It’s getting much worse. We know that he could die if something isn’t done quickly.”

As his health deteriorates, Adnan is refusing to undergo medical tests or take vitamins, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.

“We’ve been told he cannot stand on his own or walk and that he’s shackled to the hospital bed,” Randa explained. “There are guards watching him at all times.”

Adnan was arrested last July when soldiers took him from his home in Arrabeh, a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank. For the 10th time in his life, he was placed under administrative detention, a practise in which Israel holds Palestinians on “secret evidence” for renewable six-month intervals without trial or charges.

An estimated 426 Palestinians in Israeli lock-up are currently being held as administrative detainees, according to the Ramallah-based Addameer Prisoner Support Network.

Since that time, Randa and her four children have applied several times for Israeli permits to visit him in prison, but they have been denied on “security” grounds.

Randa dismisses Israel’s claim that her husband is a threat to that country’s security, arguing that “anyone that speaks out against the occupation is a target, especially influential people like Khader who are supported and loved by many”.

“My husband is supported by people from every political party, including Hamas, Fatah, and Islamic Jihad. Even people who aren’t politically active have protested in solidarity with him,” Randa continued. “But the Palestinian Authority has only released statements. We don’t want statements – we want action.”

First imprisoned in 1999 for membership in the Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian political party considered illegal by Israel, Adnan’s activism has landed him in both Israeli and PA prisons.  

Back in 2011, however, he became an icon of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement when he launched a 66-day hunger strike against his administrative detention that concluded with his release.

His 2012 strike, during which Randa says he nearly died, sparked a series of hunger strikes culminating in a mass hunger strike that drew the participation of more than 2,000 prisoners in Israeli jails.

In exchange for an end to the collective strike in April 2012, Israeli authorities were forced to agree to a number of the prisoners’ demands, including access to education, improved living conditions, more family visits for Gaza prisoners, and the use of administrative detention being limited to rare cases.

Yet Israeli authorities have since continued to use administrative detention on a regular basis and have sought various ways to crack down on hunger strikers.

Although administrative detention is permitted under international law if there are “imperative reasons of security”, Human Rights Watch researcher Sarah Saadoun says Israel “seems to exploit the exception as a routine way to avoid taking criminal suspects to trial”.

“According to human rights law, you have the right to know the reasons for your arrest and an opportunity to challenge the accusations made against you, as well as the right to a speedy trial,” Saadoun told Al Jazeera.

On Sunday, the Israeli cabinet approved a draft of a bill that, if passed by the Knesset, will enable the Israel Prison Service to force-feed hunger strikers.

Various versions of the bill have been floated in the past, but the current text stipulates that force-feeding orders will require the approval of a judge who is circuit president or deputy president.

“Security prisoners would like to see hunger strikes become a new sort of suicide bombing to threaten the state of Israel,” Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who proposed the bill, said Sunday.

“We won’t allow anyone to threaten us and we won’t allow prisoners to die in our prisons,” he added.

Israel’s attempts to legalise force-feeding have met with sharp criticism. In 2014, as the Knesset considered a similar bill, the World Medical Association said the practise is “tantamount to torture” in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Amany Dayif, director of prisoners’ affairs for Physicians for Human Rights Israel, says the group’s doctors have only been allowed to visit Adnan once since he began hunger strike.

“He already has worrying symptoms caused by the hunger strike,” she told Al Jazeera. “He has been refusing examinations by the Israel Prison Service or public hospital doctors … and has refused vitamins and minerals that hunger strikers usually take.”

Regarding the proposed force-feeding bill, Dayif says that Israel has reintroduced it at a “strategic time”, adding that Ahmad Saadat, secretary-general of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has also threatened to launch his own hunger strike if Israeli authorities continue to deny him access to family visits.

“We think the bill is likely to pass, particularly if Saadat and others join in a mass hunger strike,” Dayif commented. “We hope that if the bill passes, it will remain only ink on paper and not implemented by doctors.”

Israel Prison Service did not respond to a request to comment on the impending bill or Adnan’s declining health.

Meanwhile, Randa Adnan says her husband is committed to continuing his hunger strike until Israeli authorities charge him with an offence or release him. “Of course we are very worried about him, but if he dies it is God’s will. He wouldn’t be the first martyr or the last. We support him.”

explained. “There are guards watching him at all times.”

Detained Lawyer, Shireen al-‘Eesawy, Declares Hunger Strike

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Published by International Middle East Media Centre

Imprisoned Palestinian lawyer, Shireen al-‘Eesawy, from occupied Jerusalem, and held in solitary confinement in the Ramla Israeli prison, has declared, Tuesday, an open-ended hunger strike.

The Palestinian Detainees’ Radio said al-‘Eesawy is demanding her right to family visits, in addition to being granted access to her clothes and belongings, including a mattress to sleep on, instead of the thin rubber mattress provided to her.

Al-‘Eesawy is also demanding to be allowed certain electrical equipment such as radio, TV and a fan due to excessive heat, in addition to having her Canteen account reopened, as Israel closed it after moving her into solitary confinement.

It is worth mentioning that the Israeli Prison Authority transferred the detained lawyer from the HaSharon Prison to solitary confinement in Neve Tirtza Prison, after accusing her of “inciting other detainees against the soldiers in prison.”

The Prison Authority also removed four female detainees from solitary confinement, after holding them for a week, when they intervened after an Israeli prison guard attacked detainee Ehsan Dababsa.

Al-‘Eesawy was kidnapped on June 3 2014; she is the sister of detainees Samer and Midhat al-‘Eesawy.

Israel issues administrative detention orders to eight Palestinians

Posted on by mahadmin

Published by Wafa

The Israeli military court of Ofer Tuesday issued administrative detention orders against eight Palestinian prisoners, said the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club (PPC).

PPC said that three prisoners from Hebron received detention orders without charge or trial for a period of four months. They were identified as Hani Masalmeh, Khalil Abu Dwaish, and Rami al-Salamin.

Majd al-Sa’adi, from Jerusalem, and Yousif Salhab received similar sentences.

Meanwhile, Nimr Damj, from Jenin refugee camp, and Mohammed Abu Joma’a, from Jericho, received a three months detention sentence, while Mousa Ala’a Eddin, a resident of Jerusalem, received two months.

Under administrative detention, prisoners are held without charge or trial and for indefinite and renewable period of time.

The use of administrative detention dates from the “emergency laws” of the British colonial era in Palestine. Israel uses administrative detention routinely as a form of collective punishment and mass detention of Palestinians, and frequently uses administrative detention when it fails to obtain confessions in interrogations of Palestinian detainees.

According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, “Israel’s use of administrative detention blatantly violates the restrictions of international law. Israel carries it out in a highly classified manner that denies detainees the possibility of mounting a proper defense. Moreover, the detention has no upper time limit.”

“Over the years, Israel has placed thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention for prolonged periods of time, without trying them, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them or their counsel to examine the evidence,” B’Tselem reports.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy which violates international law.

To be noted, several Palestinian prisoners, including senior Hamas official Khader Adnan, are currently on a hunger strike to protest their illegal detention without charge or trial.

Meanwhile, Israeli military courts have renewed the detention orders of around 55 prisoners, for different periods of time, under the pretext of completing investigations and judicial proceedings.

Khader Adnan: ‘The more they torture me, the more determined I become’

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Published by Ma’an News Agency

Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, who is now on his 42nd day on hunger strike against the Israeli practice of administrative detention, said Tuesday that “the more [the Israelis] torture me, the stronger and more determined I become.”

Adnan, 37, made the comments to the chief lawyer of the Palestinian prisoner’s society Jawad Bulous, who was visiting him at Israel’s Assaf Harofeh medical center.

Bulous said that “new dangerous symptoms” had appeared indicating that Adnan’s health has seriously deteriorated. “He suffers severe pains all over his body with blue spots on his shoulder and clear speaking problems.”

Bulous said that despite Adnan’s sufferings, there has so far been no discussion about his case, although he said officers from the Israeli prison service visited Adnan on Monday to see how dangerous his condition was. “Despite his complaints about detention conditions in hospital, wardens made these conditions worse by fixing a curtain at the outer door of his room and three wardens were sent to his room while his hand and his leg were tied to his bed,” said Bulous.

Adnan also told the lawyer that a delegation representing the International Committee of the Red Cross had attempted to visit him several days ago, but that they cancelled the visit after Israeli officers insisted on attending and keeping Adnan tied to the bed.

On Friday, the director of the prisoner’s society, Rafat Hamduna, said that Adnan’s weight was dropping to dangerous levels and he was no longer able to stand up or move.Adnan, a father of six children, was detained on July 8, 2014 and sentenced to administrative detention for the 10th time in his life.

Palestinians held in administrative detention can be held without charge or trial for months or years, and are denied access to the evidence that led to their detention.

In an open letter released last month, Adnan wrote that the goal of his strike is to resist Israel and prevent it from tarnishing the achievement of prisoners who secured their freedom by going on hunger strikes in the past, only to be rearrested by military forces.In 2012, Adnan took part in a 66-day hunger strike against his detention without trial or charge. The agreement that released him on April 18 of that year also ended a hunger strike of 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, who had called for an end to administrative detention.

Despite Israel’s agreement to the demand at the time, around 500 Palestinians are currently being held under administrative detention, out of a total of nearly 6,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons.

Knesset extends bill preventing Palestinian family reunification for another year

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Published by Palestinian News Network

The Israeli Knesset last night has extended the “family reunification prevention” bill for Palestinian families for another year. 57 MKs have voted in favor of the extension, 20 voted against and 5 abstained.

The bill prevents family reunification between Palestinians living in Israel and their spouses from the West Bank or Gaza. It also prevents them from living in Israel, unless the husband is over 36, and the wife is over 26.

The bid was first presented during the Ariel Sharon cabinet in 2002, in hopes to “protect the Jewishness of the state” and prevent the return of Palestinian refugees from the back door, using a security pretext which divides Palestinians, and Judaizes the capital of Jerusalem. Israeli authorities have regulated the law starting 2003 as a temporary law for a year. However, it has been extended yearly on a regular basis now upon recommendations by Israeli security forces.

The Supreme Court has denied numerous appeals presented by human rights organizations to cancel this bid which prevents thousands of Palestinian families from living together under the same roof, tearing families apart for years.

Soldiers expel 200 Palestinians from pool to allow settlers to bathe

Posted on by mahadmin

Published by Mondoweiss

A report from the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem [link]: “IDF soldiers expel Palestinians from pool in Palestinian village to Enable Settlers to Bathe”

On 7 April 2015, during Passover holidays, a group of hundreds of settlers accompanied by Israeli security forces came to Birkat al-Karmil – a natural pool close to the village of al-Karmil, which lies in the southern Hebron Hills within Area A. In 2011, Yatta Municipality renovated the site, creating a park there and restoring an ancient pool at its center.

B’Tselem’s investigation found that at about 2:00 P.M., hundreds of settlers arrived at the pool accompanied by dozens of soldiers, Border Police, and representatives of the Civil Administration (CA). The security forces ordered the Palestinian bathers to leave the pool and remain on the edge of the park. They allowed the settlers, however, free and exclusive use of the rest of the park. At about 5:30 P.M., the settlers and the security forces left the area.

“According to media reports, reveal that the settlers came to the pool on the initiative of the Susiya Tour and Study Center. In its publications, the center described the pool as the historical site of the Biblical settlement of Carmel and emphasized that the visit was authorized and accompanied by the military. The center reported that some 1,000 people had taken part in the tour, including Chief Military Rabbi Rafi Peretz, and that similar events have been held at the site for several years, particularly during the festivals of Sukkot and Passover.

According to testimonies collected by B’Tselem, when the settlers arrived at the pool there were almost 200 Palestinians there. Some were bathing in the pool, while others were relaxing in the park. Muhammad Mahaniyah, 20, a resident of Yatta, told B’Tselem field researcher Musa Abu Hashhash that when the settlers arrived, accompanied by the security forces, he was bathing in the pool with friends:

A Border Police officer ordered me to get out of the water quickly. At first I refused and told him that I wanted to be in the pool and had a right to be there. I said that I had no problem with the settlers swimming along with me. He threatened to use force if I didn’t get out of the water quickly, so my friends and I had no choice but to get out. The soldiers ordered the Palestinians who were around the pool to move back to the edge of the park, to stay there, and not to approach the settlers.

Ibrahim Abu Tabikh, 15, from the village of al-Karmil, told Abu Hashhash:

At about two o’clock I went to swim in the pool, which is about 500 meters from my home. When I got there, I saw groups of settlers moving towards the pool. There were dozens of soldiers and Border Police officers with them. The settlers began to undress and jump into the water. I also jumped in with my brother Muhammad, 16, and we began to swim. The settlers complained about our being in the pool and three young settlers started swimming towards us. Some soldiers intervened and asked them to move away from us. After they swam away, one of the soldiers ordered us to get out of the water. I refused and stood by the edge of the pool. Another soldier came up to me, pointed his gun at me, and shouted at me to get out of the water quickly. Muhammad and I got out of the water because I was afraid of the soldiers. As I got out, dozens of Palestinian residents around the pool shouted slogans against the settlers being there. The soldiers moved the residents away from the pool to the northern section of the park and prevented them from wandering around the park. In the meantime the settlers continued to swim while the soldiers guarded them. I stayed in the park until the settlers left at about half past five.

During the incident, the mayor of Yatta came to the pool and protested to the CA representatives who were with the settlers. One representative informed him that the visit had been coordinated with the Palestinian DCO. B’Tselem contacted representatives of the Palestinian DCO, who denied any coordination and claimed they had submitted an official complaint to the Israeli DCO. In fact, whether the visit was coordinated is immaterial, as the Palestinian DCO is not free to refuse such requests by Israeli security forces.

This incident is yet another example of how Israeli authorities operate in the West Bank. Almost any desire expressed by settlers, however capricious, is automatically facilitated at the expense of the Palestinian population. In this case, the military used its force and authority solely in order to allow settlers the pleasure of bathing at that particular location. This purpose is unjustified in its own right, and certainly cannot justify the entry of soldiers into Area A or any disruption to Palestinians’ lives.

B’Tselem wrote to the IDF Spokesperson requesting a response to the incident, including a series of detailed questions. The IDF Spokesperson replied with a laconic response that offers no explanation for the authorities’ conduct in the incident.

Tel Aviv’s panic shows boycotts are having effect

Posted on by mahadmin

By Joseph Dana, published by The National

This month marks 48 years since the start of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian West Bank. What is remarkable about this sober anniversary is not the longevity of Israeli control over Palestinian life or the failure of various peace efforts, but that it took so long for a grass roots boycott movement to come into being that could apply serious pressure on Israel.

Such a boycott movement is now fully deployed on multiple fronts, from diplomatic initiatives to sport to pressure on international companies complicit in Israeli occupation.

Last week, Palestinians stopped just short of forcing a vote at Fifa’s world congress on suspending Israel from international football. At the same time, years of pressure on French telecom giant Orange resulted in blistering remarks from its chief executive, Stephane Richard, stating he would pull his company out of Israel immediately if it were not for the legal quagmire that would ensue. On the diplomatic front, the European Union appears poised to start labelling Israeli goods produced in illegal settlements.

While Mr Richard quickly backtracked his statements and proclaimed that Orange will stay in Israel, the damage had been done and Israel’s leadership showed itself to be in utter disarray as to how to contain futhur boycotts. Israel’s hysterical reactions speak volumes about the direction the country is heading.

At this stage, Israel is ironically playing directly into the hands of the boycott movement. In essence, the movement’s major selling point is continued Israeli arrogance, which underlines the boycotters’ mantra that only outside pressure can force Israel to stop its intransigence. Pending a radical announcement of an end to the occupation or even the serious curtailing of the settlement movement, both of which Israel is unable or unwilling to do, Tel Aviv seems helpless to defend itself against additional boycotts. After all, there is nothing unique to this boycott of colonial Israel. Boycotts are tried and true non-violent ways to force change on stubborn regimes the world over.

It is a testament to Israel’s hubris that it has allowed itself to be placed in such a position, seeing as it had intimate exposure to the boycotts of apartheid South Africa.

A couple of years ago, I interviewed an Afrikaner politician from the Democratic Alliance in his wood-panelled office in South Africa’s parliament in Cape Town. A former member of the National Party, which instituted and oversaw the apartheid government, the politician described how Israeli businessmen would visit South Africa in the 1980s to help white South African businessmen circumvent the international boycott by purchasing their products, smuggling them across the border to Zimbabwe, and then selling them on the open market with Israeli labels replacing the South African ones.

Stories like these demonstrate just how closely Israel watched the boycott bring down apartheid South Africa. Israeli strategists at various levels of government are familiar with the history of anti-colonial movements.

That Israel created a network of Palestinian collaborators and disrupts Palestinian political unity on every level is testament to this fact. And yet, despite this wealth of information and experience, Israel is reacting to its own boycott in the same hysterical way that apartheid South Africa did in the 1980s.

Last week, justice minister Ayelet Shaked forcefully argued that Israel should boycott the boycotts and “return fire”. Other senior members of the Israeli leadership have dismissed the boycott as an “industry of lies” and labelled the movement anti-Semitic.

By equating boycotts with anti-Israel actions, Tel Aviv has sent a clear message to the world that its occupation and domination over Palestinian life are part and parcel of the country. Israelis don’t even pay lip service to the idea that their occupation is a temporary measure that will end when a peace agreement comes into being and a two-state solution is realised.

Israel defends its behaviour in a manner that erases the Green Line that separates recognised Israel from Palestine and embraces the occupation as a permanent facet of Israeli statehood. In so doing, the Israeli leadership and the majority of Israelis essentially make the boycotters’ case for them.

A similar situation unfolded for the apartheid regime in South Africa when it was forced to its knees by boycotts. Apartheid leaders often argued that the regime was a necessary fact of life and even a right, in the same way that mainstream Israeli leaders speak about the occupation as their “right” to security and their “right” to build anywhere in the West Bank.

Regardless, Israel now stands naked in its colonial ambitions for the world to see. The most frightening part is that a majority of Israelis have come to embrace this position. History often repeats itself first as tragedy then as farce. We have entered the farcical episode of Israel’s colonial history. It is unlikely that the country will enjoy the same sort of international support and protection now that its ambitions are clear and unavoidable.

Apartheid in Israel is about more than just segregated buses

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What in a different a different situation would be considered apartheid is tolerated by many because it is ostensibly temporary. But the occupation has long stopped being temporary.

By Aeyal Gross, published by Haaretz on 26 May 2015.

South Africa used to distinguish between two types of apartheid. The first, called “petty” apartheid, included the separation of public amenities like public benches, bathrooms and public transportation. The second, called “grand” apartheid, included the division of territory and political rights, under which separate areas were allocated in which blacks were forced to live. Residents of these areas were deprived of South African citizenship, with the government claiming that these territories, known as Bantustans, were essentially independent states. While it was easy to photograph petty apartheid, which had blatant expression in signs saying “For Whites Only,” the impact of grand apartheid was no less harsh.

The attempt to make the Palestinians in the territories travel on segregated buses drew such fire that the plan was criticized by the right as well as the left. Segregated buses have great symbolic power, as they remind everyone of the fight put up by Rosa Parks, the American black woman who refused to sit at the back of the bus in 1955. It’s an aspect of apartheid that photographs clearly, even though it is merely one aspect of petty apartheid; the most conspicuous aspect of the segregation that is the basis of the Israeli regime in the territories.

This regime contains components of grand apartheid as well; a regime which determines that Jews are allowed to live here, and Arabs are allowed to live there – and not on an equal footing. It’s a regime based on separation and dispossession of land and water resources, as well as the resources of the rule of law. The law is not enforced equitably in the territories; not only are there separate legal and judicial systems for the Jewish and Arab populations, but law enforcement breaks down when it comes to attacks by Israelis on Palestinians.

Thus, by objecting to petty apartheid, right-wing politicians are persuading themselves, and some of us as well, that they are “enlightened,” while grand apartheid carries on. Israelis and Palestinians are segregated in the territories not just in terms of residential areas and housing, but also in the realms of education, health care and welfare. Israeli law applies there to Israeli citizens and Jewish foreign nationals across the board, including a number of laws meant to apply only to residents of the state. For the purpose of the National Health Insurance Law, for example, a Jew who lives in the territories is considered a state resident eligible for the rights that the law confers, but the same law does not apply to his Palestinian neighbor, who is dependent on a different, weaker health system.

On top of all this, just as blacks were deprived of political rights in South Africa by grand apartheid, a section hidden at the end of the Knesset Elections Law titled “Special Instructions” gives Israeli residents of the territories the right to vote for Knesset, an option that in principle is not available to those living outside the country’s recognized borders. This right is not given to the local Palestinians.Thus, under the cover of the supposedly temporary character of the occupation, the segregation regime gains legitimacy. What in a different situation would be considered apartheid is tolerated by many because it is ostensibly temporary. But the occupation has long stopped being temporary; it is indefinite in time, as the settlements themselves demonstrate.

Even after the apartheid bus plan was dropped, this fact hasn’t changed. That’s why we cannot let the debate over the buses hide the fact that grand apartheid, characterized by inherent inequality between Jews and Arabs in all areas of life in the territories, is no less serious in its dimensions, and in many ways more serious, than segregated buses.

Does the term ‘apartheid’ fit Israel? Of course it does.

Posted on by mahadmin

Published by The LA Times on 17 May 2014

The storm of controversy after Secretary of State John F. Kerry’s warning that Israel risked becoming an “apartheid state” reminded us once again that facts, data and the apparently tedious details of international law often seem to have little bearing on conversations about Israel conducted at the highest levels of this country. As was the case when other major figures brandished the “A-word” in connection with Israel (Jimmy Carter comes to mind), the political reaction to Kerry’s warning was instantaneous and emotional. “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and any linkage between Israel and apartheid is nonsensical and ridiculous,” said California Sen. Barbara Boxer. That’s that, then, eh?

Not quite. Flat and ungrounded assertions may satisfy politicians, but anyone who wants to push the envelope of curiosity even a little bit further might want to spend a few minutes actually thinking over the term and its applicability to Israel.

“Apartheid” isn’t just a term of insult; it’s a word with a very specific legal meaning, as defined by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1973 and ratified by most United Nations member states (Israel and the United States are exceptions, to their shame).

According to Article II of that convention, the term applies to acts “committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.” Denying those others the right to life and liberty, subjecting them to arbitrary arrest, expropriating their property, depriving them of the right to leave and return to their country or the right to freedom of movement and of residence, creating separate reserves and ghettos for the members of different racial groups, preventing mixed marriages — these are all examples of the crime of apartheid specifically mentioned in the convention.

Seeing the reference to racial groups here, some people might think of race in a putatively biological sense or as a matter of skin color. That is a rather simplistic (and dated) way of thinking about racial identity. More to the point, however, the operative definition of “racial identity” is provided in the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (to which Israel is a signatory), on which the apartheid convention explicitly draws.

There, the term “racial discrimination” is defined as “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.”

A few basic facts are now in order.

The Jewish state (for so it identifies itself, after all) maintains a system of formal and informal housing segregation both in Israel and in the occupied territories. It’s obvious, of course, that Jewish settlements in the West Bank aren’t exactly bursting with Palestinians. In Israel itself, however, hundreds of communities have been established for Jewish residents on land expropriated from Palestinians, in which segregation is maintained, for example, by admissions committees empowered to use ethnic criteria long since banned in the United States, or by the inability of Palestinian citizens to access land held exclusively for the Jewish people by the state-sanctioned Jewish National Fund.

Jewish residents of the occupied territories enjoy various rights and privileges denied to their Palestinian neighbors. While the former enjoy the protections of Israeli civil law, the latter are subject to the harsh provisions of military law. So, while their Jewish neighbors come and go freely, West Bank Palestinians are subject to arbitrary arrest and detention, and to the denial of freedom of movement; they are frequently barred from access to educational or healthcare facilities, Christian and Muslim sites for religious worship, and so on.