Title May Provoke, but it's the Reality for Palestinians

[Scurrilous]

"The reality is that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict must be resolved if we ever hope to see regional stability in the Middle East. Continuing to ignore the humiliation, indignities, and racism against Palestinians has never served our national interests. Neither has it served Israeli interests."

Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid

<snip>

"It’s the title of a new book authored by former President Jimmy Carter, and according to this statesman who oversaw the first Middle East peace agreement between Egypt and Israel , the title was meant to provoke a much-needed discussion which rarely ever transpires in US politics and media.

Not surprisingly, some US politicians took issue with the book’s title before it was even released, including Michigan Congressman John Conyers, a cherished friend to the Arab-American community. He said that the use of apartheid in the title “does not serve the cause of peace and the use of it against the Jewish people in particular, who have been victims of the worst kind of discrimination, discrimination resulting in death, is offensive and wrong.”

Conyers went so far as to call Carter “to express my concerns about the title of the book, and to request that the title be changed. President Carter does not build upon his career as a proponent of peace in the Middle East with this comparison and I hope he and his publisher will reconsider this decision.”

Perhaps he felt that South Africans who lived under a brutal apartheid regime would be offended. Yet, interestingly, South Africa’s own Bishop Desmond Tutu and others have referred to the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Christians and Muslims as "Israeli apartheid."

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[pelsar]

1. its a stuiped title...

if someone who proposes to be a "peace broker" and wrote a book called: "israelis and the future palestenian terrorist country" i doubt the palestenians would look upon the auther as some kind of "peace broker"

[nicoll]

2. Chambers concise dictionary

The definition in the Chambers Concise Dictionary Says the following:

apartheid :1) an official state policy, especially that operating in South Africa until 1992, of keeping different races segregated in such as housing, education, sport, etc,, together with the privileging of one race, in the case of South Africa the White minority, over any others. 2) any segregationist policy.


The title is misleading. Palestine does not exist at present, but the base for the country shall probably be the West Bank. Yes there is segregation in the West Bank when you have Jewish only settlements or outposts. A better title would be "the West Bank - Peace not apartheid, what will a Palestinian state look like". A more interesting subject is the rights of people living in Israel, which is actually in a state and not on international land like the West Bank. Arabs in Israel are treated as second class citizens. An ethnic state based on the Zionist principle of providing a national homeland exclusively for Jews, will never address the needs of it's non-Jewish citizens, particularly those defined as 'the enemy'. This is a form of exclusion where one race of people is given more rights than another and this as always been of interest to me in a country claiming to be the only real democracy in the Middle East.

[pelsar]

3. the agenda finally "shows up"...

it took you a while..with your "even split the land mathamatically and peace will prevail"....

I'm afraid having an agenda and little facts doesnt do much good for ones credibility....

Arabs in Israel are treated as second class citizens....whereas israel like every other western country in the world has problems with its minorities, if the arabs were really "second class citizens"..they probably couldnt be members of the knesset, the army officer corps, supreme court justice, etc

try again.....let me provide some suggestions here:

israeli arabs moving to jewish villages
israeli arabs in the universities
funding to arab villages (roads, education)
employment in the arab sector
bedouin in the negev
armies neglect of the Druze

and finally look up surveys about where the israeli arabs would prefer to live: israel or in palestine.....


not only will you find much to write about in terms of how the evil zionistic israeli govt treats its minorities but you can feel really good about your 'agenda"...go for it!

[breakaleg]

4. or, we could look at the education allowance for Arab school children.

Or perhaps the Arabs that risk losing their citizenship for visiting the West Bank. Or the ones who are losing their homes due to that damn wall.

And there are many people who would like to live in the US for economic reasons but that doesn't mean they don't love their home country more.

[pelsar]

5. check out the surveys.....

israeli arabs by overwhelming numbers would not live in a Palestine...despite the discrimination, in fact some would get violent if there is a "land exchange" putting them in a "palestine"

reality...israel is a far better place to live for israeli arabs, warts and all, than a palestine ruled by "their own"...or at least so they say.

_________________
just one:
Over 90% of Arab residents in the 'Triangle' are opposed to the land exchange plans announced by the Israeli Government on the 3rd February, 2004

http://www.mada-research.org/sru/press_release/survey_landPop.shtml

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. it would be rather surprising if Palestinians with Israeli citizenship

would want to live in a non-sovereign state with a non-viable economy. So far that's all the Palestinians have been formally offered.

[pelsar]

9. read more...

the surveys....everyone i read mentioned democractic values within israel and non democratic values within the palestenian society.....not to difficult to understand, in fact, economics wasnt even an issue in some.

sometimes the facts are really that simple.

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. even in the broader Arab world there is a recognition that

Israel has democratic institutions. I don't doubt for one minute that most Palestinians with Israeli citizenship like the more democratic side of Israel.

But do Palestinians within Israel believe they are treated equally or do they believe they are more or less second class citizens? I suspect you know the answer to that.

[pelsar]

11. of course there is discrimination...

tons of it....we all know that...but its a long way from that to an official "racist society" as was mentioned.......

as far as "second class goes"....i would also say its mixed. It hardly simaler to americans south during the 50's where discrimination was blatant. Reading israeli arab writings one finds a very mixed society with multiple identites that infact conflict with one another. However most of those israeli citizens also have a definitive confidence that the future is a better place and in fact israeli history has shown a constant improvement of their status.....

democratic yes, problematic yes, liberal yes.......wins hands down for the region and competes well with the rest of the world (i think in trafficking of women were no longer up at the top, but were pretty high on the corruption index).....)

[msmcghee]

12. I would hate to imagine what the reaction of many posters . .

. . here would have been, if instead of Martin Luther King and non-violence, blacks in the fifties had started sending suicide bombers into public place like buses - killing whites and their children on their way to those segregated schools.

Within days, instead of sending the National Guard to Little Rock to escort black kids to white schools, they would have been setting up checkpoints around black neighborhoods and subjecting blacks to whatever humiliation was necessary to protect white lives and livelihood.

Integration probably never would have happened in this country. Yet, in Israel, because there are some vestiges of discrimination (mostly not institutional) against a people who are ethnically the same and often supportive of those who have been sending in those suicide bombers for some 60 years - some here have the audacity to claim that Israel is an "Apartheid" state.

I think that anyone who steps back and looks at the whole history and the present reality sees that Carter must have some strange "lust" in his heart that has destroyed his objectivity.

[Douglas Carpenter]

13. actually among Palestinians with Israeli citizenship

there has been very little violent protest. I wouldn't say none, but very little.

But President Carter made it clear that his concentration and specifically his use of the word apartheid was directed only at the Occupied Palestinian Territories. He was very specific in stating that he was not critiquing policy within Israel itself.

Whatever word one wants to use to describe the condition of the Palestinians in the occupied territories it certainly far exceeds simply the word, "discrimination". And it far exceeds the issue of responses to terrorism or even the issues of protest and went on even before the start of the first intifada when there was very little violence. And unfortunately nonviolent protest are dealt with almost as harshly as terrorism. Even the peaceful nonviolent protest and civil disobedience exercises going on to protest the wall which is cutting off a lot of Palestinian farmers from their property have been met with real brutality:

"The Christian Peacemakers Team, also co-founders of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), conduct nonviolent methods in their work in their violence reduction program, as they mostly have a Mennonite background.

Soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets, and gas bombs, at the peaceful protest; six residents were injured; resident Nathmi Yassin, 42, was hit by a rubber coated bullet in his head and is in a serious condition, Tareq Abu Rahma, 10, suffocated after inhaling gas, Adeeb Ahmad, suffered bruises after being badly beaten by the soldiers and was arrested, Sameer Bornat, 30, rubber-coated bullet injury, and Riziq Issa, 20.

One Israel peace activist, identified as Jay Amnon, 23, was injured, and two others were arrested.

In a separate incident, soldiers attacked a peaceful protest against the Separation wall in Aboud village, near Ramallah." link:
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15295&Itemid=1

_____________

p.s. my apologies if this sounds picky--but the first suicided bombing within Israel occurred in April of 1994 in Afula---link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3256858.stm

[pelsar]

17. the time line...always important.

And it far exceeds the issue of responses to terrorism or even the issues of protest and went on even before the start of the first intifada when there was very little violence.

the increase in checkpoints and increased in limited freedom of movment for the palestenians is a direct result of the suicide bombers. As the attackers were no longer fit the profile of the 16-29 year old single palestenian male and widened to include women, the married the under16 etc only then did more and more road blocks appear.

important to note previous to intifada I the palestenians had free movement throughout israel......with only a few checkpoints in the westbank.

as the violence went up and varied so too did the checkpoints...a one to one correlation. So to complain that the checkpoints exceed the responses to violence is absurd. When there was less voilence there was less checkpoints....and the latest of using grandmoms to become suicide bombers certainly show that they too know have to be checked, slowing down the lines even further.

____

peaceful protest?....I doubt Martin L. King would agree that throwing fist sized rocks, destroying property is actually "non violent"......

[Douglas Carpenter]

20. actually closure was first implemented in 1991 and pretty much

made permanent in March 1993. The first suicide bombing occurred in Israel occurred in April 1994 well after a significant increase in checkpoints. A great deal of abuse occurs at checkpoints on a daily basis -- Machsom Watch (Monitors abuse at checkpoints)

http://www.machsomwatch.org/eng/homePageEng.asp?link=homePage&lang=eng


One needs only to check the record of any independent and credible human rights organization and they will see that several nonviolent protest and nonviolent acts of civil disobedience have been brutally crushed.

[pelsar]

21. you've now confused closures and checkpoints...

closures were always an on and off thing....and very porus.....but it was hardly "abuse"...Having been part of many checkpoints i am very well aware the types and characters of them.

and its was clear that only when the suicide bombers started to show up in large numbers did the checkpoints start appearing all over and were intensified...as were the rules that governed them.

again whats the definiton of non voilence? are throwing rocks "non violent"...destruction of property "non violent"....how about when non violent protests suddenly turn "violent.

a non violent protest is a philosophy not a tactic (as ML King).....please inform that to the the protesters, it will help them.

[Douglas Carpenter]

23. yah, those Mennonite thugs from the Christian Peacemakers Team

are sure dangerous -- and that is just one of coutless incidents -- one needs only to check the record to see how the IDF deals with nonviolent protest:

International Committee of the Red Cross/Palestinian Territories:

http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/palestine?OpenDocument



http://www.btselem.org/english/About_BTselem/Index.asp

Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions:

http://www.icahd.org/eng

Amnesty International/Israel and Occupied Territories:

http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/israel_and_occupied_territories/index.do

Human Rights Watch/Israel and Occupied Territories:

http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/israel/

Machsom Watch (Monitors abuse at checkpoints)

http://www.machsomwatch.org/eng/homePageEng.asp?link=homePage&lang=eng

[pelsar]

25. you dont understand non violent protest...

its not a tactic used in some places and where machine guns are used in others....its not used to destroy israeli property......only when the palestenain population accepts it as a philosophy....as in MLKing, will it win over the israelis and have an equal affect on the palestenians.

pretending to be "non violent"...and then throwing rocks sometimes....or trying to destroy a fence..sometimes......or protesting while a different group plants a bomb elsewhere, or sends a kid with a pipebomb to blow us some israelis doesnt work to well.

get your Mennonites to convince islamic jihad that sending grandmas with bombs is not the way to do things and you'll have some credability with the "non violent protest"....until then, the tactic is no more than just that....a tactic, like the road side bomb, like the kassam, like the sucidebomber grandma

[Douglas Carpenter]

27. I have always argued in favor of nonviolence -- to whatever minimal

effect I might have. I will always argue in favor of nonviolence. I trust you will do the same with your comrades in the IDF.

I also trust that next time a peace agreement is signed that you will speak up when politicians talk about peace while approving; settlement expansion, apartheid road expansion, property expropriation and housing destruction. And I will indeed continue to urge nonviolent approaches. I would not be true to myself if I did otherwise.

[pelsar]

28. i have no problem with non voilence....

nor do any of the guys in my unit (but were an older unit...it makes a difference)...its just has to be consistent.

standing before a protest not knowing if its supposed to be a non violent, semi non violent or with AK-47s in the background...tends to make one a bit nervous....

as far as the settlements go etc....I and many others like me are watching gaza......and were hoping that this time it works out. If it does the settlements dont stand a chance.....

[Tom Joad]

14. Isn't violence a natural response to colonialism?

Seven Hundred Thousand forced out of Israel.
Over 500 villages destroyed. Not allowed to return, despite clear international law. While Jewish people, whose families have never set foot there, are allowed to settle there.

Today, farms and homes destroyed. Thousands and thousands. Over 10 thousand homes destroyed in just the last few years.

There is much more going on here than mere "discrimination".

If we want the violence to stop, end the racist colonial project. For those who want to fight to "win" then keep the status quo. but i don't think Israel is ever going to win.

[pelsar]

18. we dont have to win...

we just have to survive.....and be able to fight for ourselves......the other alternatives are less attractive......we've tried them.

and the palestenains and others?, the ones living in refugee camps and having miserable lives, that keep getting worse and worse?..one day they'll realize that their friends are not the arabs who keep them there, or the nice euros and americans who tell them its their right to keep on fighting and losing.......

one day they'll realize there best bet is to stop fighting and work with israel.....and then they'll feel like absolute fools for believing the wrong people

[breakaleg]

22. So their best hope is to allow Israel to beat them into submission. nice.

[pelsar]

24. the best hope.....is with the palestenains..

to take the words of the hamas spokesmen to heart...and do something about it:

Instead of engaging in constructive state-building, he said, Palestinian society had been tearing itself apart....perhaps you disagree with the Hamas spokesman?

btw after losing for the past 50+ years, it might be a good idea to change tactics....the present ones, the one their friends keep urging them to use, dont seem to work to well....do they? (hint, check out the maps since 1948 and the "shrinking palestenain areas" and their shrinking GNP).....kinda dumb to keep on using the same strategy...duh!

[breakaleg]

26. What you don't seem to understand is the power of the human spirit.

You are clinging to that statement like it's a bible of some sort. It pops up in every thread. Let it go.

[pelsar]

29. dont like the israeli view point?

cant accept it?....well thats a pretty typical liberal israeli viewpoint......we've got 2,000 years of "human spirit"...that has led us to finally being able to live as real citizens without fear.....as far as the palestenain human spirit...they can live in dignity along side us or in refugee camps in misery with the same "human spirit"....their choice.

maybe one day they'll figure it out, seems some in the hamas have.

[Douglas Carpenter]

30. If Israel is prepared to make a genuine peace and recognized

a genuinely sovereign,contiguous, independent Palestinian state with a genuinely viable economy, control over its borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital -- then peace is very possible. In fact from my point of view I believe that peace could have been achieved some time ago under those conditions.

The Yossi Beilin & Yasser Abed Rabbo Geneva solution offers such a plan that would be acceptable to the vast majority of Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority. It is far from a perfect plan whether from a Palestinian perspective or an Israeli perspective. But it does offer the basis for something resembling a just and lasting place.

Now this an anecdote -- but it really happened with me. About two months ago I happened to have diner with a friend and his Palestinian coworker; a young and very polite accountant named Amjad. As our conversation got on to the issue of the conflict I discovered that Amjad was a fierce and ardent Hamas supporter full of all the inflammatory rhetoric one would expect from a fierce and ardent Hamas supporter. Finally I asked Amjad if he would support a full peace with Israel if the Palestinians where genuinely offered a genuinely sovereign, independent Palestinian state with a genuinely viable economy, control over its borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital. His initial response was, "Israel never has and never will offer that. Israel doesn't want peace -- they just want to take our land". I then pressed the question and said to him, "maybe you are right but, what if, just what if the Palestinians were offered a genuinely sovereign, independent Palestinian state with a genuinely viable economy, control over its borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital -- then would you support a full peace with Israel?". Amjad paused to think for about 30 seconds and then said, "yes, of course!".

[pelsar]

31. in principle yes...

Rabin had about 50% of the israelis with him...since then many more eyes have been opened and i would guess at more than 60% agree and even more accept, that that is the "end game"

the problem is how to get there......its a trust and confidence game...and there in lies the problem.....we dont trust them and they dont trust us, both have good reasons to believe such.

which is why it has to be done in small baby steps......and let me give you a small story:

when there was the Hebron agreement many years ago it rained:
the jews of hebron said it was god crying, the palestenians said it was god blessing them with rain...hence the interpretations of moves will simply enforce those who believe whatever they believe.....(the extremists..and it is they who have to be sidelined).

there was an excellent article about how the change will have to come about written by and israeli and palestenain together, each understanding what their own cultural needs to accept the changes and each other....i'll see if i can find it, it simply struck me as not just honest but realistic.

[pelsar]

32. realistic...

http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=818

how it shall happen...assuming that the whole region doesnt "blow itself up"

[Douglas Carpenter]

33. thank you

I think you have raised a very important point that many Israelis and many Arabs simply don't understand about each other. Each side is extremely afraid of the other. What is often interpreted and blind, ancient hatred is simply fear and in many cases to the point of paranoia.

[nicoll]

7. I have no more of an agenda than you

I do not think that Israel is an evil zionistic government within the Middle East. But Jewish Israeli's do seem to have a better deal than Arab Israeli's living within Israel. Yes probably the majority of Arabs would choose to stay within Israel, but you can not use this as a comparison when they only have the choice of going to a refugee camp (GS or WB) instead of living in Israel. How can you say that I should look up surveys of whether arabs would like to live in Israel or Palestine when Palestine does not even exist as a state. It is like asking someone if they would like to live in a state or some fantasy land over the rainbow called Palestine. Maybe if it ever happens and a Palestinian state is formed alongside Israel you could use it as a comparison, but not really until that happens. So you are saying that there is no difference in the way Jews and Arabs are treated within Israel and both have completely the same rights as equal Israeli citizens. Brilliant I am really pleased that you have cleared that up for me and now I know that whatever I read saying that Arab Israeli citizens have less rights than there fellow Jewish citizens is wrong.

[pelsar]

8. read the surveys....any of them...

the arab israelis prefer israel for both its economics and democratic values...over whatever palestenian society has to offer....simple as that.

i never wrote that jewish and arabs israelis are treated the same, there is definite discrimination on various levels...but thats far short of you blanket "second class citizen, racial society that the "zionists created"......

[Tom Joad]

15. Palestinian society is under brutal occupation. Read the newspaper.

[pelsar]

19. get what you asked for.....

start a war......and you may not win......

but the subject was israeli arabs who by an overwhelming majority want nothing to do with any future palesetenain state....they understand what a "palestenain state" means for citizen palestine.....and its not a pretty sight. The prefer israels democracy.

poor palestenains.....whats worse israels occupation or a brutal "home grown" facist theorcratic govt that nobody will care about (as in iran or the taliban), least of all all those nice "lefties" in the west.

[Stockholm]

16. If President Carter calls his book PA: Peace, not Apartheid

Then there is probably a reason for it. Now I know what I want for Christmas.