The headline of this Washington Post piece today (4/26/10) is certainly not promising:
Sharing a West Bank Highway Proves a Tall Order for Israel, Palestinians
The highway in question was built by the Israeli government on occupied Palestinian territory. Since 2000, Israeli authorities have barred Palestinians from using the road. They are now offering to open just two on-ramps for use by Palestinians, who would be searched upon entering the road. And the highway would still not provide access to the crucial Palestinian city of Ramallah.
So what would justify the notion that Palestinians, like Israelis, aren’t doing their part to “share”? Nothing. This is the only explanation of any sort that the Post‘s Janine Zacharia offers:
The debate over Highway 443 illustrates a fundamental rub in the West Bank: If the Israelis and Palestinians can’t agree over how to share nine miles of pavement, how will they ever resolve the far more complex issues that divide them?
From an Israeli viewpoint, allowing Palestinians on the road increases the risk of violence and adds traffic. To Palestinians, the road is another example of Israel’s reluctance to make life easier for them in occupied areas.
Perhaps segregationists in the United States lodged similar complaints about overcrowding too.
It seems the “Roadmap to Peace” ™ doesn’t include any highways with an on-ramp for justice.
Washington Post op-ed, 1942: “Will Jews ever learn how to handle their own hygiene, or will the Nazis have to provide them with free showers forever?”
Thank God for FAIR. Please keep up the good work.
Aren’t we leaving out that this is one of many roads built on Palestinian land (occupied territories), that the Palestinian’s are bared from, cannot cross, and divides their land into little pieces, and on which only Israelis can pass, giving them access to illegal settlements on someone else s land. How absolutely grand of the Israelis to allow access to a tiny piece of the road. We should obviously bow to their generosity and forget that they treat Palestinian’s like dirt.
I am unpleasantly surprised that FAIR would republish this distorted article regarding the usage of the highway. First, the highway was not built on “Palestinian” land. Without a peace treaty setting the boundries of Israel and establishing a Palestinian state, it is misleading to refer to the land as Palestinian. Second, the article minimizes the real and vital security concerns of Israel and those using the highway. By limiting the number Palestianian users, is it not possible that the numbers are fixed by the ability of Israeli security forces to search the users? Why did not the Washington Post make an effort to determine the reason for the two-ramp limitation? As far as the clomusing comment goes, the sarcasm trying to link southern segregationists with Israel completely undermines the article’s credibility: Civil rights leaders did not protest segregation by bombing innocent men, women and children on busses, at bus stops, religious celebrations, restaurants and shopping centers. And lest we forget, it was the southern segregationists who bombed churches, murdered civil rights workers, and used “Jim Crow” terror against civil rights workers.
Here the Palestinian fundamentalists bomb not only Israelis but their own people. Why don’t you guys open your eyes and see who you are really dealing with?
Of course it’s Palestinian and Occupied land. The 1967 boirders are internationally recognized and ignored only by Israel. The same can be said about the separation and apartheid wall that is built inside Palestinian territory and not along the recognized 1967 border. If you want to build a fence between yourself and your neighbor you build it on your property, not his.
Harold obviously does not know any Israeli Palestinians or he would know that they are second-class citizens. When Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote about what he saw when he visited the Holy Land he said:
â┚¬Ã…“What do I see and hear in the Holy Land? I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the yoke of oppression that was once our burden in South Africa.â┚¬Ã‚Â
That’s exactly what conditions are for the Palestinians.
Israel always like to excuse their racist behavior by saying their actions are because of terrorist threats. But it never seems to occur to Israel that their actions, discriminations, and policies are terroristic.
You come into a new territory from Europe and claim over 60% of the territory, while your population is only 30%, and you call the actions of the people who are fighting for their very survival terrorist?
This highway and the racist policy surrounding it is just another example of Israeli’s thinking they have some kind of God given inherent right to threat Palestinians in a racist way. There is not that much difference in southern Jim Crow, South African aparthied, and Israeli occupation.
Then Richard slipperily tries to condemn the Palestinan reaction by calling them terrorist. The Palestinians are not terrorist. They might be using the wrong tactics. Richard, you need to instruct Israel to stop the oppression, and not tell the Palestiniand how they should react to racist policies.
To HAROLD SHABO.
1)While you are manifesting a lot of emotion in your feedback, there is very little content.
2)Feel free to familiarize yourself with reports such as as this one, before you voice your criticism furthe:
http://www.btselem.org/download/200408_Forbidden_Roads_Eng.pdf
(it was done by an Israeli HR group by the way!)
3) You end your comment with “Why don’t you guys open your eyes and see who you are really dealing with?”
We ARE opening our eyes to the hidden apartheid and a latent genocide taking place in Palestine. Cast Lead operation sure shed some light on it!
When I was a kid, I was told in Mormon Sunday school that the church supported the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel. I was confused because my parents and many of family and church friends were Jew-bashers. I thought it was a plot to get them all in one place and kill them with one blow. In any case, the state was established in a rude manner. Non-Jews were killed and thrown from their land. The U.S. established it’s favorite military base by appealing to the horrors of the holocaust. / I am appealing to reasonable Jews to treat Palestinians as brothers. This may be difficult because of the ingrained, Muslim fundamentalism. But those guys with the beanies, ringlettes and raggedy underwear are just as brainwashed. // Jean Clelland-Morin
To Richard,
As a matter of fact I do know some Palestinian Israelis and they are not treated as second class citizens. They attend public schools if they so choose. Many do not of their own choice. They attend public universities and engage in Israeli society on a par with Jewish Israelis. They are even free of the obligation imposed on Jewish Israelis of serving in the military. The absence of military obligations gives them several years advantage over their Jewish counterparts, both educationally and professionally.
As for internationally recognized borders, those borders were obliterated by the unprovoked war which the Arab states waged against Israel upon its founding. The subsequent wars waged by the Arab states resulted in lost territory, e.g., the Golan Heights. New international borders need to be determined under a peace agreement between the parties.
Finally with regard to Suzy’s comment about the Wall, that wall was constructed as a last ditch effort to prevent the kind of terrorist bombing of civilians within Israel. Those bombings have essnetially stopped at this point. Thus Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and various terrorist fringe groups resort to constant missile attacks on Israel, not to mention the wanton kidnappings that they carry out within Israel.
Any idea how many missiles hit Israel every day?I know i Know, it’s their own fault right?Imagine if native Americans were firing missiles from Canada killing your loved ones.As you bury your wife, would you say it is just our own fault?For Israel, security comes first.The reason the Palistinians are inconvenienced is because they won’t renounce death to Jews as a past time.Every time Israel gives a finger- they take a knuckle.Imagine once in the past there were several thousand Palistinians in what is now Israel .Most of course lived in Syria.Egypt.Libia.And other Arab states.Well they were booted out of there and there are no roads for them to get to their homelands.Never an outcry over that? .And no thought of giving them anything.Today millions live in Israel.And they HATE the jews and wish them dead.Every demand is followed by more attacks.How would we deal with that?
Any idea how many missiles hit Israel every day?I know i Know, it’s their own fault right?Imagine if native Americans were firing missiles from Canada killing your loved ones.As you bury your wife, would you say it is just our own fault?For Israel, security comes first.The reason the Palistinians are inconvenienced is because they won’t renounce death to Jews as a past time.Every time Israel gives a finger- they take a knuckle.Imagine once in the past there were several thousand Palistinians in what is now Israel .Most of course lived in Syria.Egypt.Libia.And other Arab states.Well they were booted out of there and there are no roads for them to get to their homelands.Never an outcry over that? .And no thought of giving them anything.Today millions live in Israel.And they HATE the jews and wish them dead.Every demand is followed by more attacks.How would we deal with that?
Why should a small country that has been attacked again and again, and has recently been the target of more than 2,000 rockets, trust the people responsible? If the Palestinians had any pride at all, they would stop their whining and turn to building something useful on their own land. Israel has done this, in spite of all the jealousy, hostility and resentment of its “neighbors,” and has thereby earned the respect and admiration of the “saner” nations of the world.
Harold Shabo (04-30-10) discussing Palestinians’ rights to their former homeland stretching back for millennia proclaims, â┚¬Ã…“it is misleading to refer to the land as Palestinianâ┚¬Ã‚Â; I am left incredulous.
In 1947 approximately one million Palestinians lived in what is now called Israel while about half as many Jews lived in that same area. However, Palestinians never talked to God as Jews did and obviously didn’t hear the Lord (Jewish mythology) give Jews Palestine.
America’s unequivocal support of Israel’s state-sponsored terrorism against a helpless people, the Palestinians, will during the 21st Century cost America two cities, maybe more, by nuclear weapons detonated by angry people who never received justice in their arbitration with American politicians that supported Israeli armed aggression, its violation of human rights, and its contempt of international law.
To those who advocate for the oppression by state of Israel, do you not know that Israel started about half the wars? Like the 1967 War in which Israel did a sneak attack on their neighbors and stole the land now in question? And just how many bombs and missiles have hit Palestine from the Israeli side? 20,000? 40,000? The answer is probably much higher. I find it disgusting that palestinians choose to detonate a suicide bomb on a bus with civilians, however you ignore the vast majority of them who chose to protest non-violently who are shot in the head by Israeli army and police. I find it far more disgusting that a people who have endured so much discrimination and intolerance because they were a minority would then be consumed by discrimination and intolerance toward a minority population that they control.
The “rockets” are essentially free rockets. One of the only things free in the occupied territories. The “erased boundaries” were erased during war. International law prohibits the taking of land by force. The land so taken is Palestinian by international law. As far as the rockets go the nuimber of dead and or injured is miniscule especially when compared to the almost constant attacks by the IDF and by illegal settlers upon the people of Palestine. In the case of the IDF they have the most sophisticated weapons in the world mostly supplied by the USA to our shame. When they attack their weapons kill and maim all kinds of innocent civilians with malice aforethought. When the recent crackdown on international air traffic occurred for fear of a “terrorist” attack only the USA connected flights were highlighted. This is not an accident. The CIA, that paragon of virtue, calls it “Blowback” and it is based upon our one-sided blind support of Israel along with our historical support of despotic regimes in the area. The national interests of the USA do NOT CORRESPOND WITH iSRAEL’S.