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Eamonn McCann: How America turns a blind eye to apartheid in the Middle East
Thursday, 27 August 2009
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Even as the noose tightens on the people of Palestine, Binyamin Netanyahu has the neck to talk about peace.
The Israeli Prime Minister has been in London for discussions with Gordon Brown and US envoy George Mitchell. Back in the Middle East, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians continues. There is no sign of Britain or America acknowledging this fact or calling it by its name.
As they listen over the airwaves to the discourse from London, the Palestinians must be close to the edge of despair. The confidence of the Israelis that there’s nothing they can’t get away with, must by the same measure be boosted.
In the last three months, the Netanyahu government has introduced new restrictions on travel to the West Bank. This is the small part of Palestine supposedly under the control of the Palestinian Authority, but is in fact 60% controlled by the Israeli Defence Forces.
Israel is now turning back travellers who arrive at Ben Gurion airport en route for the West Bank and requires them to enter the territory by the Allenby Bridge on the border between the West Bank and Jordan. This forces many to return to their point of origin and set out again, if they can. Transit at the crossing — between an independent country into an area supposedly recognised, including by Israel, as legitimately governed by the Palestinian Authority — is controlled by the Israelis.
Officials of the Netanyahu administration stamp ‘Palestinian Authority only’ on the passports of travellers, denying them access to West Bank areas occupied by the IDF or to East Jerusalem or Israel “proper”.
A majority of those restricted in this way are Americans.
The US goes along with this curtailment on the rights of its citizens under international law. Its consular website (http://jerusalem.usconsulate.gov/border-crossings.html) spells it out: “Since the spring of 2009, Israeli border officials at the Allenby border crossing have begun using a new entry visa stamp that permits travel only in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas ... Please note that only Israeli liaison offices in the West Bank can assist — but they rarely will.”
The website highlights the following warning: “Palestinian-Americans Must Enter Through Allenby.”
Palestinian-Americans are |denied entry to the larger |part of the West Bank, while Israel encourages American Jews to come and settle |illegally in the same Palestinian territory.
The acquiescence of the Americans is no surprise. When, two days after his inauguration, Obama introduced Mitchell as his peace envoy, he had nothing to say about Israel’s leading part in the prevention of peace — just as he had sung dumb about the assault on Gaza which had conveniently ended just in time for the inaugural celebrations, apart from a remark that, “If missiles were falling where my two daughters sleep, I would do everything to stop that.”
He was referring to Israeli children. Thankfully — and, admittedly, as much by luck as by intention — not a single child was among the nine Israeli fatalities in the Gaza conflict, whereas, according to both Red Cross and UN figures, at least 300 children were among the 1,400 Palestinian dead.
Nevertheless, some of the brightest signs of hope for the Middle East come from Israelis fighting for justice for Palestinians. Neve Gordon may be about to lose his job as chair of the Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University, for his support for Palestinian rights. He wrote last week: “For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea.
Within this region about six million Jews and close to five million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5m Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights.
By sharp contrast, all Jews — whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel — are citizens of the state of Israel. The question that keeps me up at night is how to ensure that my two children, as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbours, do not grow up in an apartheid regime ...
It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.”
And there’s Ofra Ben-Artzi. Earlier this month, she was arrested in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem while going to comfort Palestinian friends, evicted to make way for Jewish families.
She wrote: “I could see the ultra-Orthodox men and women, in their distinctive clothing, walking quietly along the road ... nor did the bars prevent me from seeing that Umm Kamel's tent, where she had been living since her own expulsion, was also gone. From the floor of the police car I saw what looked like a complete Judaisation of the neighbourhood.
“We are walking with our open eyes into the abyss. If we will not be smart enough to live together, Arabs and Jews ... then we will be dragged into transfer [of populations], and if this is not enough, what will we do then? Erect concentration camps?”
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23 Comments
Eamonn McCann - a waste of print and paper.
Posted by Terry | 07.09.09, 13:11 GMT
One wonders why? Must read President Carter's book: Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.
Posted by SH | 06.09.09, 23:34 GMT
Why are people in Northern Ireland obsessed with the Middle East?
It is generally loyalists, republicans and atheists
Posted by conor | 31.08.09, 13:59 GMT
Excellent article and factually correect. I live 200 yards from the homes in Sheikh Jarrah where the Palestinian families were recently evicted. Ethinic cleansing has been but one instrument in the Israeli arsenal since 1947 and was spearheaded by David Ben-Gurion. The sceptics should read Ilan Pappe's book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. It should be noted that he was hounded out of the University of Haifa because his proven thesis did not fit the story line of how Israeli independence was won. I'm afraid the same fate may await Neve Gordon. Keep up the good work!
Posted by Robert | 30.08.09, 23:00 GMT
That people hate Jews for being Jews is anti-semitic and wrong, that people question the policies of Israel is right, as with every other country.
What is wrong is that defenders of Israel and the Israeli govt. hide behind claims of anti-semetism whilst treating the Palestinians at best like 3 class citizens.
Their policies of collective punishment, restricitons of movement, detention without trial and their possession of the nuke should be criticised not because the people doing it are Jews but because it is wrong. Until the US is able to confront the Congress controlling AIPAC and lead in its criticisms of Israel then the conflict will not be resolved
Posted by Paul | 30.08.09, 11:33 GMT
Yet again Eamonn's column reads like the propaganda of the Palestine Campaign people. Its time for Eamonn to exercise some independent thought on this issue and perhaps he would have something significant to say.
Posted by Av | 29.08.09, 22:39 GMT
ulysses32, not 'nough said', your quick history lesson of the semitic linguistic group tells us nothing about 'anti semitism', a wholly different bag of bones, an attempt to intellectualise and give scientific credence to the institutionalised hatred of jewish people in europe in the 19th century, that's 'anti semitism'. I think sometimes you have to draw a distinction between the actions of a state and the desires of it's people, if not we're all guilty of pulling the trigger in afghanistan and iraq, within israel there is a significant and vocal opposition, that, time, and the realisation that agression breeds resistance in the shape of qassam rockets, will eventually solve that conflict. Then the conflict will move somewhere else and these pages will fill with gut reaction condemnation, when your heart bleeds make sure it's on the battle field fighting the system that perpetuates war and greed not into the empty 'post a comment box'....
Posted by michael | 29.08.09, 07:19 GMT
Typical anti-Israel posturing. Israel has every right to exist and protect its territorial integrity. The Palestinians have no right to Israeli land, especially since the area of 'Palestine" is actually in Jordan. Everyone wants to blame the Israelis for the Palestinian plight, but they look past the fact that none of the Arab countries are offering any land for Palestinians to settle. When the Arabs accept Israel and stop calling for its destruction, then Israel will have some honest peace talks. But for now, as long as the Arabs are led by irrational and violent leaders, there will be no peace.
Posted by Wm. H. Cornell | 28.08.09, 17:07 GMT
How typically Eamonn - a blinkered view of history.
Posted by robbo | 28.08.09, 15:25 GMT
True Liberal, I Put it to you that you are anti-semitic.
The term Semitic tribes (or Semites) refers to several groups of nomads and camel pastoralists who spoke related Semitic languages and included Arabs, Aramaeans, Jews, Carthaginians, Ethiopians, Abyssinians, and Phoenicians. They roamed Arabia and Mesopotamia beginning somewhere in the third to fourth millennium BC, and dominated the Babylonian society beginning about 3000 BC.
'nough said
Posted by Ulysses32 | 28.08.09, 15:01 GMT
'trueliberal' - what exactly is anti-semitic about it? please elaborate? and lee, calling him a 'liar' is wrong - there were soem issues around rent, but go and educate yoursel fon the full picture then come back and spraff.
Posted by Humanist | 28.08.09, 11:56 GMT
it's too easy to get lost in the arguments, pro-contra, the facts are like most emergent states, Israel chooses to defend it's borders and expand it's territory to accomodate the jewish diaspora, to accomodate the palestinian arabs into the Israeli state would cause a problem to the ethos of that state, ie that it is a home to the Jewish people of the world, the marginalisation of the palestinian arabs reflects that position, at a certain point and probably very soon, a two state solution will be reached which gives palestinian a diminished state and protects the interests of Israel, ie removes the demographic problem of too manyarabs in a jewish state. Arabs are being killed in Gaza, true and apalling, Christians in Darfur, Arab against Arab in Iraq. McCanns' article is factual and accurate, but one sided and stepped in pathos.
Just a thought, but if your history is genocide, pogrom, displacement, racism, i think you're maybe gonna protect what's yours ?
Posted by michael | 28.08.09, 07:34 GMT
Another great article by Eamonn McCann ,a principled and courageous political activist who consistently raises a voice for the oppressed and dispossessed around the globe,more power to you .McCanns the man.
Posted by mik | 28.08.09, 06:11 GMT
True Liberal, what a load of "what if's". Of course you have to add "anti-semitic" as well for good measure. Slowly but surely the world is awakening to the ethnic cleansing, occupation, brutality and racism of the Isreali state. How about if someone came and threw you out of your home, bulldozed it and dozens more, then occupied a whole area and built a "settlement"? Then if you fought back, they killed your family and the whole neighbourhood. Guess you'd be ok with that?
Posted by Brian | 28.08.09, 05:19 GMT
what a typically one-sided, anti-semitic rant from the liberal left. When you look at successful ethnic cleansing in recent history, lets look at the collapse of the large jewish populations of Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Yemen,Iraq etc, the now minority status of Tibetans, perhaps closer to home the virtual elimination of protestants from Derry City.
The Arab population is today growing in the only democracy in the middle east, Israel, the only nation in the region with a free press, gay and womens rights, certainly the only country where jews are able to practice their religion.But the hate-filled rants of McCann, so silent on so many genuine cases of ethnic cleansing, is sickening.
Imagine if a terrorist organisation was operating beyond the borders of, say, China or Russia, and was firing rockets randomly into their territory. Just imagine their reaction. If it were Tibetans or Chechens it would be an absolute carnage, yet certainly ignored by McCann.
Posted by true liberal | 27.08.09, 22:59 GMT
To a large degree the U.S. was founded on a policy of ethnic cleansing and the victims of this practice were the Native Americans (so-called Indians). The westward expansion from 13 states (original colones) on the eastern
seaboard to the Pacific coast was greatly influenced by the belief in "manifest
destiny", as more and more territory was captured from the aboriginal people.
The U.S has been a faithful supported of Israel since the Jewish state was founded in the late 1940s.
Posted by Seán Mac Curtáin | 27.08.09, 21:38 GMT
What a liar. Evictions were about lack of rent payment. Get it straight. And way to trivialize the true ethnic cleansing and genocides going on in the world through systematic murder by claiming this is one through legal evictions and population transfer (even if it WAS true, calling it ethnic cleansing is disgusting when people are truly being ethnically cleansed. Where is his voice on that?)
Posted by Lee | 27.08.09, 16:56 GMT
What baffles me is how 000's of Euro refugee Jews (who were refused entry to the US) had the money to travel to Mandate Palestine, buy land and settle?
Similarly baffling is how nobody now discussed the roles of Irgun and Stern in the creation of Israel?
Posted by Paul | 27.08.09, 12:34 GMT
Andrew J Shaw, the Zionist movement long sought to inhabit HaGadah HaMa'aravit long before they were oh-so-reluctantly 'forced' to move into the West Bank. You are entitled to your opinions, but it amazes me that you do not give other people the credit for being intelligent enough to have researched the history of the region. Give people a break from your hot air.
Posted by Humanist | 27.08.09, 11:34 GMT
How did this street performer get an article published in the Belfast Telegraph ?. No, no, no, no, no, Telegraph this is really bad. He has always had his own Agenda and twists facts to fit with this, a sad day for journalism and the readers. Please articles from decent journalists who state facts, not their own version of them.
Posted by Sean | 27.08.09, 11:27 GMT
23 Comments